


i'll love some littler things

by lancebased



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Coming of Age, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Keith (Voltron), Jock Lance (Voltron), Loner Keith (Voltron), M/M, Marijuana, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Recreational Drug Use, Sharing a Bed, Tutoring, adashi, bc stoner keith is canon king, broganes, clenches fist broganes!!!!, klance, not really loner but like kinda, they share so much bed..................
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-11-12 02:06:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18001745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lancebased/pseuds/lancebased
Summary: lance and keith live senior year to fullest, smoke some weed, play some baseball, kiss on occasion, learn a few life lessons-not in that exact order.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> first of all sorry im bad at summaries, secondly im back to writing! i ditched my old fic bc i went about it the wrong way and was in a shitty place in life when i started it. but now that ive transferred colleges, moved to a new city, got a new job, and basically flipped my life upside down im much happier and super excited for this!
> 
> pls share, leave kudos, comments, all that jazz
> 
> shoutout to [devon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hattricks/works) (dabishawk on tumblr) for helping me plan this out ily
> 
> my tumblr: [lancebased](https://lancebased.tumblr.com/)
> 
> title from 'a burning hill' by mitski

Left, right, left, right, left–

“What’d you get for number, uh–” Allura flips a page over, scanning, “–12?”

Keith tosses his own packet across the lab bench to let her look all she wants. “Didn’t you just yell at me a few minutes ago for not doing my own work?”

“I did my work,” Allura counters, frowning down at the papers. “I just–needed to check my answers.”

Keith scoffs, though it’s more of a puff of air leaving his nose. He goes back to leaning on the uneven stool–

Left, right, left, ri–

“How on Earth did you get D for number 17?” Allura interrupts his mindless swaying.

“Plug it all into the enthalpy equation,” Keith says, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“I did, but…” Allura trails off, murmuring to herself, pushing buttons on her pink calculator with vigor. When Keith is sure she isn’t talking to him any longer, he unlocks his phone and starts scrolling through Instagram, resuming his shifting his hips side to side on the cheap lab stool. He scrolls fast, ignoring most posts of his fellow classmates, liking only a very select few, but one post happens to catch his eye enough for him to scroll back up and stop messing with the stool:

The picture was taken at golden hour, for sure. Clear complexion still dark from a lingering summer tan that will never truly fade, face painted with two thick strips of black under each brown eye, arms thrown around some classmates while others cheer in the bleachers behind them, bandana ruffling up some short brown hair, sporting a makeshift tank top (an old white tee with the sleeves cut off–a move that makes him look like an asshole) branding the Garrison High School logo and the familiar blue and red, with a tint of white at the snout, smile big and _obnoxiously_ bright.

 

Liked by **alluraaaa** , **garrett_hunk** , and **283 others**

 **lance.mclain** mom said its my turn to sit in the front row during football games #itsaseniorthing #gohomefreshmen #imkiddingpleasestay #everycheercounts #justdontsitinthefront

View all 18 comments

 

Keith stares at the photo, not zooming in but definitely examining it more meticulously than he’d ever admit. He can tell Lance isn’t looking for attention in his photos, he just wants to share what he’s up to with anyone who may care–Keith sure as hell doesn’t care. He double taps anyway.

Liked by **alluraaaa** , **garrett_hunk** , and **284 others**

Keith is just another one of the masses in Lance’s notifications; the thought never bothers him, though.

Staring at the picture for just a second more, he scrolls. Before long, he stops again to overanalyze another post.

 

Liked by **blonded** , **lance.mclain** , and **153,971 others**

 **kevinabstract** you gotta be one of the most special human beings i ever met. sometimes i feel like i don’t deserve you. thank you for taking time and being patient with me. one of my closest friends on this planet. ur so kind and caring. happy birthday jj. i love you so much. p.s. i know it’s your birthday but please give us the next Tarragona collection

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Keith wouldn’t mind someone saying that to him on his birthday, or any day, really. Wouldn’t mind having someone to say that to. He double taps. The swaying of his stool doesn’t resume, his ass hurts from sitting on it for so long anyway.

“Allura, do you think I’m more Kevin Abstract or more Jaden Walker?” He questions, still soaking in the picture.

“Hmm,” she ponders. “Jaden.”

Keith nods, “Yeah. Jaden.”

“That Lance guy reminds me of Kevin, though,” she thinks out loud, not even looking up as she scribbles.

Keith...doesn’t have anything to say to that.

 

~ ~ ~

 

The day comes and goes, not too bad for Keith’s standards. Lunch had baked potato soup as it does every Wednesday, Keith’s personal favorite. Not to mention one of the tables that the athletes sit at (Lance included, but that’s not a relevant detail to Keith, obviously) has their daily water bottle flipping competition, and it was quite fierce today. Lance managed to land 8 flips in a row–not that Keith had been watching–only to be beaten Ryan Kinkade, the master of bottle flipping and catching fly balls in left field.

(Keith hopes no one saw him staring, even though he and Lance locked eyes for half a second before Keith turned away. Keith doesn’t have to know how long Lance’s eyes stared back, trying his best not to be intimidated by that stupid mullet, while his ears listen for that airy giggle Keith lets out when his whole table is laughing their asses off at something.)

When the final bell rings at 2:30, Keith stays true to his routine: go to his locker, swap out any books or folders for the ones he needs for homework, take a piss, fill his water bottle, and head to Adam’s classroom.

Adam’s eyes are locked in concentration as he types, glasses falling down the bridge of his nose. Keith slumps down into a seat near the front of the classroom, looking around. The whiteboard is covered in ridiculous looking equations and symbols and graphs, only to be truly understood when someone as patient and articulate as Adam is teaching it. There are stupid math puns and motivational posters scattered around the room, all of which Keith and hundreds of other students have seen endless times but never really bothered to commit to memory. The plants settled on the windowsill are flourishing, as they should since Adam makes Keith water them on a strict schedule. The large windows are open, letting in a steady flow of humid September heat into the dry air of the room.

As Keith reads the selected chapters for his english class, Adam finishes fumbling around on his laptop, throwing his glasses on his desk and huffing loudly. “So, how was your day?”

“Uh, long,” Keith says, marking his page number with a paperclip.

“You always say that,” Adam deadpans, putting his hands behind his head as he leans back in his chair.

“You always ask that.”

“Because I care about you and want to know how your day went. Quit being an ass and tell me about it.”

Keith throws his head back, stretching his neck. He recounts it all in moderate detail: easy lab with Allura in chem. Finished his homework in class for stats. Had the baked potato soup for lunch–that was nice. Did some homework during his free periods. Took a quiz in history he doesn’t feel to great about.

“Why don’t you feel good about it?” Adam cocks his head.

“Just–I don’t know. Didn’t remember some of the stuff, and it was short answer and Mr. Coran’s a stickler for essay questions,” Keith shrugs, avoiding his gaze.

“You studied for it?”

Again, Keith refuses to make eye contact. “I did...but I could’ve studied more.”

Adam nods, smiling softly. He doesn’t reprimand Keith, he’s aware Keith knows what he did wrong–but he doesn’t know how to make Keith fix it. “You’ve always had trouble with that kind of stuff.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, leaning his chin on his hand.

“Maybe you should see a tutor,” Adam offers, not very nonchalant.

“Maybe I should _what?_ ”

Adam takes his hands out from behind his head, saunters around his desk to lean his backside against it. “I don’t want to see you drop _another_ course–”

Alright, too far. Keith knows he can’t walk out, but that doesn’t stop him from throwing some attitude. “I’m not gonna drop this course, Adam! I’m not even failing!”

“Not _yet_ ,” Adam counters.

“Oh, ye of little faith, I see,” Keith taunts.

“Without some help? Yeah. I have little faith.”

Keith rolls his eyes obnoxiously. That gets a rise out of Adam, who stands straight to point a finger at him.

“Oh, don’t you even–” He stops himself, shaking his head and leaning back on the desk. “You’re so stubborn.”

When Keith doesn’t reply, Adam  takes a deep breath before continuing, “It’s okay to accept help when it’s being offered.”

“Doesn’t really feel like it’s being offered,” Keith pouts, staring at the floor. He gets what Adam’s saying: he knows that this isn’t about some trivial history class, this about Keith refusing support and Keith’s own obdurate volition. Keith will be damned if he admits he knows that, but Adam will be damned if he tries poke at him like that anyway.

“That’s because it isn’t. Takashi and I have already talked about–”

“Are you serious? You talked to Shiro about this and never thought about bringing it up to me?” Keith blurts.

“Of course I talked to him about it,” Adam says. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Keith doesn’t know why Adam wouldn’t bring that up to Shiro, they are both responsible for him, afterall. He’s just making this difficult for the sake of teenage angst. “This is stupid. I’m a senior, grades barely matter anymore.”

“Are you seriously trying to tell an educator that grades don’t matter?”

Keith loves pushing buttons, so: “Yeah. I am.”

Adam rolls his eyes and reaches behind him to put his glasses back on. “Whatever, Keith. You can do your best to fight with your brother about this later. For now, the first session is scheduled for tomorrow at 5.”

Oh, for the love of–

“You already _scheduled it?_ For _tomorrow?_ ”

“Yep!” Adam quips, feigning a smile. “You already told me you’re not scheduled for work then, and it’s not keeping you from any after school activities, so it works perfect!”

Keith huffs, shaking his head as he gathers his things in his backpack. “Yeah, works perfect.”

“I know, right?” God, and Adam wonders where Keith gets his sarcastic attitude from.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Keith fumbles as he gathers his supplies in the dim light of the art closet. Grumbling to himself as he throws every brush in a cup, every can of paint onto the cart. He laughs out of anguish when he gets a text from Shiro in the group chat with him and Adam.

 **takashit shirogaymer:** Salmon or mostaccioli for dinner tonight?

He ignores it, shoving his phone back in his pocket. He begins the trek to his work area when his phone pings again.

 **adam w (the w stands for whore):** Salmon.

Keith starts his walk again, he can hear the laughter and hollering of a few boys down a distant hallway. His phone goes off again.

 **takashit shirogaymer:** Okay, and Keith?

Fuck it, he’s going to be an asshole. He types as he strolls, one hand on the cart.

 **keith:** is this household suddenly a democracy again or do i still not have rights

 **adam w (the w stands for whore):** Nope! Salmon it is!

Keith scoffs, wandering down the hallway, phone in hand, trying to think of some clever yet bitchy comment to send back when the shouts of the boys are suddenly louder by ten-fold. He looks up to see a tall figure running backwards he rounds a corner, laughing as he barrels toward Keith and his cart, tripping over his own Nikes.

“No way, man! There’s no way you– _oh!_ ” Lance tumbles down with the cart, sending it and himself into the wall, supplies scattering against the tile. Keith smoothy stepped out of Lance’s line of fire, opting to let his cart get wiped out rather than his body, but still winces as he watches the catastrophe. After he’d slammed into the cart, Lance flipped over it, rolling into the lockers with numerous loud crashes.

The guys down the hall all burst out laughing, droning on about how one of them got it on Snapchat. Keith recognizes most of them as members of the baseball team: Hunk, the catcher who’s the size of a linebacker with a heart just as big, Ryan Kinkade, the left fielder Keith has never heard speak more than 10 words at a time, James Griffin, arguably the biggest asshole Keith has ever met in his entire life, and some underclassmen he doesn’t know.

“Argh,” Lance groans as he sits up, rubbing his shoulder. He looks up to Keith, who’s standing silently, staring at Lance with a completely blank expression. “That was rough.”

It looked rough, Keith wants to say, but can’t really muster it out. Offering out a hand, Lance looks at it for a moment, as if he’s wary, but takes it anyway. Keith lifts him with ease, and Lance springs to his feet, trying to inconspicuously pick his basketball shorts out of his ass.

“Jeez, dude,” Lance laughs. “Gonna dislocate my shoulder with beef like that.”

Immediately, Keith leers, “What?”

“I–uh, nothing.” Lance looks away, hiding a blush Keith never knew was there.

“Did you just say my arm is beefy?”

“No! I–maybe.”

Keith shakes his head, squatting down to pick up his supplies. “Whatever, dude.”

“It was a compliment, I was saying you’re–nevermind.” Lance shakes his head, then bends down to join Keith, frantically picking things up. “I’m really sorry I ran into you like that, I should’ve been paying attention, and–”

“It’s fine,” Keith cuts him off, tone so monotone it almost sounds like attitude. “You don’t have to help. I got this.”

Lance stops for a second, staring at Keith and saying, with a drip of disappointment, “Oh.”

He sits there for a second more before continuing to pick up the clutter, deciding he wants to help anyway, feeling too bad for knocking the cart over. Keith looks over to him blankly and says, “Seriously. You can go.”

Lance blinks, brow furrowing. Keith hadn’t meant for it to sound rude, not entirely, he just doesn’t feel like listening to a bunch of obnoxious jocks make useless comments as he sits pathetically on his hands and knees cleaning up. He’s upset enough as it is by Adam and the whole tutoring thing; he’d rather just be left alone for a while. Dropping a few more brushes onto the cart, Lance slowly stands and walks away, huffing and mumbling something under his breath Keith chooses to ignore.

Rising to stand, Keith places his hands on his hips, looking around at the chaos clattering the tile. He doesn’t feel Lance’s gaze lingering as he ties his hair in a low, short ponytail, doesn’t see the blush form against Lance’s will, only hears the squeak of Lance’s sneakers when he finally turns away.

Keith can hear a few of the boys talking as they walk away, but he can’t hear Hunk murmuring his own question to Lance so the others can’t hear, “Why the hell do you hate that guy so much?”

“He just–just...look at him!” Lance whispers back harshly.

“Yeah, and?”

“And what? He’s just so... _cocky_.”

“Really? I always thought he was just quiet.”

“I mean, he is, very. But he’s in my history class, and I’ve had some other classes with him too. He never even bothered to remember anyone’s names.”

“So? Maybe he’s just bad with names. Or are you mad because he didn’t remember yours?” Hunk winks.

“No, it’s not like that, don’t make it weird,” Lance shakes his head. “He’s not the type to forget shit like that. Keith Kogane is smart. Just arrogant and, and–” Lance searches for the right word for a second before he settles on, “–prideful.”

In all fairness, his pride and seemingly cocky attitude does vex Lance to no end, but the fact that he could back it all up makes it infinitely more infuriating. Keith never boasts about anything enough to be considered arrogant. Hell, Lance never had a conversation longer than a few sentences with him, but just from his few interactions, Lance couldn’t help but harbor a resentment towards him. Keith is smart, Keith is fit, Keith is cool, Keith has an edgy style, Keith has unfairly nice hair, and worst of all: Keith knows it. Lance can just _tell_ Keith doesn’t care about any judgements peers may make about him, doesn’t have to care–because he knows he’s better, sharper than them anyway.

Lance can’t place what Keith makes him feel–is it envy? Adoration? Doesn’t matter. Lance is competitive in nature; the important thing is: he wants to be able to rival this guy in any setting, wants to take down that proud attitude, wants to prove _someone_ out there can be his equal, whether he cares or not.

(Yet, Lance _does_ want him to care, to notice. In exchange of praise, for flattery in a perfect world, but that’s wishful thinking. It’s easier to remain indignant.)

The baseball boys stride away, their voices fading as they head for the field house. Though Keith is arguably a pretty active guy–he enjoys his workouts and his job regularly requires physical effort–Keith isn’t one for team sports. He never had much regard for any school activities, in truth, and didn’t have the time for them, either. He’d been working at an auto body shop for one of Shiro’s fellow firefighters since he was 14, and preferred to carry out any interests he had by himself, since most of them were able to be done solo, anyway.

However, when Adam “accidentally” showed Principal Ryner some of Keith’s artwork, she elected him to paint the school’s mural–for compensation, of course. He didn’t mind, and while he’s too stubborn to admit it, he looked forward to it. Shiro always scolded him for tagging different places around town with his art, and he had never gotten a chance to do anything creative on such a large canvas, plus with an offer of compensation and Shiro’s and Adam’s pressure, he accepted.

The request was simple: paint anything Keith desired so long as it’s focal point was a lion–Garrison High School’s mascot.

That didn’t really make it easy for Keith, as he had a gigantic white brick wall in the center of the school’s commons to paint something people would be seeing for years to come, and a small set of rules to limit him. But the lack of limitations was half the fun.

Keith sighs, long and heavy. He gathers up the rest of the supplies and heads over to the brick wall to work until Shiro texts him that dinner’s going to be ready soon.

 

~ ~ ~

 

The salmon is divine, Keith can’t deny that, but he’s still upset with his brothers, so he settles for eating in silence–half to protest, half to savor the meal. Shiro and Adam talk mostly amongst themselves, talk about their day, their jobs, their coworkers, their friends, wedding plans, important things coming up. Their conversations never seem to have an end, they never run out of things to discuss, things they want to tell the other for no reason other than wanting to share life with them.

“Keith, I think one of my players mowed you down in the hall today,” Adam muffles, mouth full of fish.

“He was one of yours?” Keith questions, as if he didn’t already know that Lance has been on the varsity baseball team for the past 4 years, has been playing since he was a kid (if Lance’s Throwback Thursday posts have anything to say about it), and has been starting shortstop since he was a sophomore. “Coulda killed me, and you let him on your team?”

“Yeah,” Adam laughs. “Lance is can be pretty clumsy, but he’s got quite some reflexes when he’s on the field.”

“I think one of them got it on video,” Keith remarks.

“Oh, yes, they played it. Then played it again. And again.”

Keith brushes off the incident, and relays an account of his day in minimal depth to the table, just enough to appease. Shiro hangs onto every word, attentive to every detail, no matter how superficial. While Keith never mentions it, he appreciates the fact Shiro (and even Adam, and his borderline derisive character) is content just to hear about his day. But Keith knows there’s an elephant in the room, looming over with every snarky comment Keith makes and every eye roll he gives, just to let the couple know he’s _not_ happy about their recent study suggestions.

Luckily, Shiro doesn’t bring up the tutoring. Unluckily, however, he opts instead to ask, “So, have you talked to Krolia lately?”

Sifting his fork around his plate, Keith mutters, “Kinda.”

“And...what does ‘kinda’ mean?” Adam pushes.

No use in lying. “She texted me earlier but I haven’t answered.”

“Keith,” Shiro scolds. “She’s trying, she really is. She can’t get anywhere if you don’t let her.”

“And what if I don’t want to let her?” Keith challenges.

“I don’t think that’s what you want,” Shiro remarks, tone softer.

Keith’s eyes wander past Shiro to the afternoon sun in glaring through the window behind him. “I don’t know what I want.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

By just before midnight, Keith finally finishes his homework and starts heading to bed. He isn’t all that tired, so a bit more procrastination can’t hurt. May as well pick up the laundry littering his floor, he’s running out of socks anyway. He’s bent over, a load of clothes overflowing in his arms, when Shiro knocks softly on the ajar door.

“Headin’ to bed soon?” Shiro peers his head in.

“Yeah,” Keith grunts, standing up. “In a few.”

Shiro watches Keith for a moment, brow slowly rising. “Are you...cleaning?”

“No,” he quips. “Just out of clean clothes.”

Shiro chuckles and goes to sit on the side of Keith’s bed, unmade and tucked close against his gray wall, scattered with a few photos and posters. While they both knew this conversation had to happen, neither of them really wanted to face it. But leave it to Shiro to follow through on anything, of course.

“You don’t have to fight with me on this tutor thing,” Keith starts, right as Shiro opens his mouth to speak.

“Why’s that? You just gonna ditch?”

Shit, he knows him too well. He knows Shiro can tell when he lies, but he does anyway just to mess with him. “No.”

“So, you’re gonna go? With no argument?” Shiro scoots back against the wall, testing his bluff.

“To be honest, I don’t really have the energy for one,” Keith says, throwing the last of his clothes in the laundry basket and joining his brother on the bed, but sitting with his back to him, toes brushing the carpet. Shiro doesn’t say anything, and that’s how Keith knows he blindsided him, at least for a moment. “I’ll go. If you really want.”

“It’s not about what I want. Or what Adam wants. It’s about you getting your grades up.”

“My grades aren’t that bad.”

“Aren’t _that_ bad,” Shiro teases. “Why not work to make them better?”

Because he’s embarrassed to go to a tutor, because grades don’t matter as much senior year, because he doesn’t have the faintest idea of where to apply to school, and if he even wants to, because he just can barely bring himself to care about his worries anymore?

He settles for a silent shrug.

“Keith,” Shiro starts. “It’s really not difficult to accept help. It’s not embarrassing either.”

“Not embarrassing?” Keith challenges, turning to face his brother. “Did you know the tutor session you signed me up for is _student-led?_ Not even a teacher who has a whole career to teach their content, just some smartass who wants extra credit!”

“And why do you care about what the other person has to think? It’s not about them, it’s about the grade,” Shiro sighs. “You never seemed to care about what others thought of you before.”

“I never had to,” he mumbles. Keith liked keeping to himself for the most part, staying out of the limelight. He was no loner and had a few friends, of course: Nyma, Rolo, a few other classmates he’d never really speak to outside of school but still was acquainted with, he’d even consider his lab partner, Allura, a friend by his standards. It’s just that he preferred to be more independent than others.

Shiro sighs again behind him. “It doesn’t have to be difficult–”

“It isn’t!” Keith insists, turning again. “I’m going, aren’t I?”

Shiro takes a long look at Keith, glazing over him, not with pity, but with near exhaustion. “I know. I’m glad to hear that.”

Scooting to the end of the bed, Shiro stands and puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder. He murmurs, “We’re forcing you to do this out of love, idiot. It’s not humiliating to accept a little help.”

Keith’s pride takes a bit of a blow, but all those years ago, Shiro made a promise to never give up on Keith–and Shiro is a man of his word.

Shiro saunters out of the room, hand on the doorknob to shut it. Before it closes completely, Keith mumbles a quiet, “Goodnight.”

In return, he receives a muffled, “Goodnight, Keith.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

It’s almost cool outside, and there’s a bit of dew on the grass that’s gone by the time Keith gets to school. The sky’s in that sweet spot between partially cloudy and gloomy, just the right amount of sun getting through. It’s a good day outside; hopefully it remains good as Keith spends the next obscene amount of time in this school.

The day comes and goes in spurts of somewhat-interesting phases to dreadfully-boring phases. Like most days, nothing remarkable happens, and Keith imagines the only adjective he’d be able to give Adam at the end of the day is ‘long.’

When he does give that description, Adam doesn’t push back like he usually does. Keith begins his forced tutoring today, so Adam treads lightly, not willing to risk the delicate balance of an oddly-blithe Keith.

So, as Adam goes off to manage the baseball team’s off-season conditioning practice, Keith works on his mural. He’d hoped it would calm himself, but in actuality, it gives him too much time to think about his upcoming session. Will the tutor be harsh? Is he gonna have a homework for this or is it meant to just help with the homework he already has? Who’s even tutoring him anyway? As humiliating as it would be, Keith won’t complain if the tutor is some random underclassman he never has to deal with outside the sessions.

And yet, despite having done no wrong to the forces of the universe or whatever divine force is out there, Keith, of course, does not get what he asks for. Instead, when he meanders into the empty classroom Mr. Coran left open for the tutor session, he’s faced with a sweaty, post-conditioning workout, frazzled, jittery shortstop so called Lance McClain.

He’s moving his stuff around, trying to set up the materials in an organized way, reorganizing it again and again, mumbling a bit to himself as he does so. Keith stands motionless in the doorway, hesitating when he finally speaks up and asks, “Are you...here for the–” he struggles to mumble the next phrase, “–tutoring thing?”

Lance whips his head up and turns fast, proclaiming, “Yes! Are you the student Mr. Coran said–oh.”

Keith raises a brow, unimpressed at Lance’s tone.

“‘Oh?’” He repeats. “Nice to see you too.”

“You just...weren’t who I was expecting.” Lance doesn’t have to add ‘or hoping’ to the end of the sentence to make his point clear. While Keith is certainly annoyed, there’s a tiny, miniscule, seemingly-microscopic twinge of disappointment at Lance’s reaction. “Take a seat, man. Let’s get started.”

Keith sighs as he sinks into the seat, dropping his bag onto the floor, Lance following suit. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

Lance keeps bouncing his leg, which causes his desk to move, which causes Keith’s desk, which is touching Lance’s desk, to move with it. Keith’s eyes stay focused on Lance’s laptop screen as it vibrates in tempo with Lance’s leg, trying not to be irked by it. Sitting back in the chair, he opts to gaze out the window instead, but the noise of the screws holding the desks together being knocked around aren’t enough to distract him.

After a few minutes of seemingly futile clicking and typing, Lance clears his throat and tucks his chair in even more than it already is, leaning his elbows on the desk and twiddling his blue mechanical pencil. “So, you ready?”

“Yes,” Keith says a bit impatiently, pulled out of a blank daydream. “Are you?”

“Yeah!” Lance says it with such zest, Keith nearly recoils. “Sorry about that, just had to pull up the class’ webpage. To get the files and stuff, you know.”

“It’s cool.”

“Cool,” Lance breathes. “Um, my name’s Lance, by the way.”

Keith meets his eye for the first time since he walked in the door. “Yeah, I, uh, I know your name.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, brow furrowing. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, uh, I don’t know. I just thought–well, we were put in a group together a few times and I didn’t think you knew my name.”

That’s odd, Lance was one of the first people Keith recognized in any class he had with him. “Oh. I...don’t remember that. Sorry, I guess.”

“You’re fine! I just thought–” Lance jumps in his seat a bit but stops himself short and exhales and smiles, “You know what? Nevermind. Let’s start. For real this time.”

“Okay,” Keith chuckles.

“So,” Lance says, clapping and rubbing his hands together. “Tell me what you think of the class?”

“What I think of it?” Keith repeats.

“Yeah, just, like, how do you like history? Do you think it’s hard? That kind of stuff.”

“Oh, um,” Keith shrugs. “It’s not terrible, I guess. I’ve taken worse classes.”

“Do you like _learning_ about history?”

Keith shrugs. He never really thought about it that way.

“Okay.” Lance tries again, “Do you think the material is hard?”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Keith thinks a moment. “Memorizing stuff isn’t easy but it’s definitely not the hardest part–it’s the essay questions, and Mr. Coran grades them so...specifically. Like, I’d be fine if we had multiple choice tests and quizzes, but–”

“We literally never do,” they say in unison, Keith smiles, Lance looks down, hoping there isn’t any red flooding his face.

“Exactly,” Keith leans forward. “It’s hard to just remember all the concepts, then to put it in essay form? It’s awful. And he wants us to sound all fancy, I can’t _not_ write about it all in Layman's terms. I’m just not a good writer.”

“Aw,” Lance jokes, nudging Keith’s arm a bit. “I’ll be the judge of that. Do you have anything on you from class?”

Keith nods, leaning over to pull a thick folder out of his bag. He starts to flick through it, sheet by sheet, before finding a few of the recent assignments and laying them onto the desks.

Lance frowns at the sheer size the folder, which is fit to burst. “Is that...just your history folder?”

Keith tilts his head, “No, it’s my folder folder.”

“You...just use one folder for all your classes?”

“Yeah…” Keith isn’t really sure what Lance is getting at. “Well, I mean, sometimes I’ll keep my papers in my textbooks or laptop or something.”

“You heathen, how did you survive 12 years of education?” Lance half jokes, half sighs. “First things first: if you wanna be at least somewhat successful in _any_ class, use folders. Lots of ‘em. One for each class.”

“That seems excessive,” Keith says, reluctant.

“Go big or go home,” Lance winks, Keith’s mouth dropping slightly. Lance leans over to his bag, pulling out a folder and emptying the few pages in it, and sliding it over to Keith. “Here. Take this one for now. But I strongly suggest buying a folder and notebook for every class. And, be prepared, sometimes a class has so much you even need a _binder!”_

“I can’t just take your stuff,” Keith shakes his head, sliding it back. Lance’s hand stops it mid-way, pushing it in Keith’s direction again.

“Don’t worry, I have plenty extra at home. I can even bring you some!”

“Oh,” Keith says. “You really don’t–”

“Alright,” Lance interrupts, grabbing Keith’s latest essays. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”

Going into this, Keith knew whoever was tutoring him would want an idea of how he’s doing in the class, would want to see where Keith is struggling. But now that Lance is sitting in front of him, reading his work, _judging_ him for it, Keith can’t help but feel a little antsy. It’s all to help him in the end, but Keith feels exposed, naked in a casual fashion that feels anything but casual. These are _his_ grades, and it’s suddenly way too personal, calling for a vulnerability Keith isn’t exactly ready to portray.

Lance’s eyes scan the first paper quickly yet meticulously, before he gets to the second page, he’s picking up one of the many multicolored pens sprawled on the desk and clicking it, about to make a mark before he stops and asks, “Do you mind if I–?”

“No, not at all, go for it,” Keith stutters out, a little too quickly. He shifts in his seat and crosses his arms, pretending his eyes aren’t wandering to see what Lance is writing.

“Don’t worry, dude,” Lance looks up and says after a moment. “I’m gonna go over all this with you.”

Keith nods, even though the remark makes him worry more. The only sounds filling the room are the clacking of the screws from Lance’s jittery leg banging the desk and the scribbling of his pen, way too quiet for Keith to feel comfortable. Soon enough, Keith’s phone buzzes, and he looks to Lance as if to as if it’s alright for him to check it.

“Go ‘head, man,” Lance murmurs, barely turning his eyes from the papers. “I’m not a teacher, I don’t really give a shit if you have your phone out once in a while or whatever.”

Keith doesn’t respond, just unlocks his phone to one new text:

 **krolia:** Sorry I haven’t answered. Work’s been busy. Let’s call soon? I’d like to catch up.

Reading the text a few times over, Keith can’t really think of a response. Texting Krolia takes effort, but talking to her on the phone is so awkward, and forget about a conversation _in person._ After a moment of thought, Keith’s thumbs type fast, going for a simple answer.

 **keith:** sure, when is good for you?

He locks his phone and flips it over onto the desk and goes back to letting his eyes wander around the room to kill some time. Only a few seconds later, Lance speaks up again, “Alright, so you said you have trouble with the essay questions, yeah? Well, I went through some of the essays and short answer quizzes we’ve had and marked them all up.”

Lance leans forward, Keith leaning in as well to get a look at the revisions. “To have a good essay, you gotta start with being able to understand what you have to write about. So, for this paper, it’s about how the US economy changed during the Reconstruction Era, yeah? We had a bunch of lectures on how industrialization, and building railroads, and abolishing slavery, like, flipped America on it’s ass. So the essay is basically tying in all those concepts to answer the question of how the US economy changed post-Civil War. But taking all those concepts to answer that question is gonna be impossible if you don’t understand the concepts in the first place, or if you don’t know what the Reconstruction Era is.” Lance pauses for a second and asks, “You know what that is, right?”

Keith has to try his best not to roll his eyes, “Yes, I know what the Reconstruction Era is.”

A small smile forms on Lance’s lips, “Good, just testin’ ya. Now let’s figure out the concepts you don’t entirely understand…”

Lance talks fast, and his legs never stop bouncing, and sometimes his handwriting is a little hard to read, but he compensates. He speaks with enthusiasm and ease, and a touch of humor. His hands flail and he’s as fidgety as can be, but it pulls Keith in. Hanging onto every word and having no trouble committing it to memory, the only thing distracting Keith is the revelation of Lance being so all encompassing.

He has color coded copies of his notes he gives to Keith, and when he explains the content Keith has spent the past month or so struggling with, it’s so easily comprehensible. Keith feels, for the first time since this class began, he actually has some sort of grasp on the content–for that specific chapter at least. Which is useless, considering the essay on it Mr. Coran assigned was due a week ago.

“But it’s _not_ useless,” Lance urges, pen tucked behind his ear. “Knowing this stuff know is gonna help you on the final research paper. Plus knowing shit like this is just stuff you gotta know to, like, function as a normal human being. You can’t go to the polls without knowing what a Republican or a Democrat is, and knowing at least _some_ the history behind it all is needed for that.”

Though it nearly pains him, Keith agrees. It’s nearly just as painful to ask Lance, “How are you so good at explaining this stuff?”

Lance shrugs, sitting back in the seat, “I dunno. I’ve had ADHD since I was 8, so I know what it’s like to struggle in school and to have no one wanna help you, or not able to help you. Guess I just explain it how I’d want someone to explain it to me.”

Keith nods, understandingly. He gets what it’s like to feel as if no one has the energy to deal with you anymore. He almost wants to say that out loud, almost follows through, when the alarm on Lance’s phone rings. “Oh! Guess it’s been an hour. Time flies when you’re havin’ fun.”

Smiling, Keith says, “Yeah. The ins and outs of the history of the US economy is riveting. Almost wish we could talk about it for another hour.”

Lance chuckles as he starts to pack up his things. “So, you down for another session?”

“Yeah.” Keith doesn’t hesitate when he says yes, not that Shiro or Adam have to know that. “When works for you?”

“Um,” Lance ponders, gathering up his rainbow myriad of pens. “Well, I suggest doing sessions twice a week for a course as rigorous as this, but my schedule is pretty open. I only work weekends, and I’m done with practice by 5 during the week.”

“Alright, well, next Tuesday works best for me, then maybe Friday?” Keith offers.

“Friday? That’s Homecoming, dude,” Lance says, like it’s obvious.

“Oh, right. Duh,” Keith murmurs.

“Don’t tell me you forgot about Homecoming,” Lance stops packing, staring at Keith incredulously.

“I didn’t,” Keith lies, pitch high and dishonesty obvious.

“Uh huh.”

“Okay, maybe I did. I wasn’t planning on going anyway, so I forgot, happy?”

“You’re not going to your _Senior_ Homecoming?” Lance blurts, to his utter dismay. Keith avoids his gaze.

“Dude, c’mon, you gotta. It’s Senior Year! Your last homecoming! Oh, my God. Keith, if you don’t go, I’m gonna–I don’t know. But I wanna see you there! I swear, if I don’t see you there I’ll, I’ll–”

“What? What are you gonna do?” Keith taunts.

“I’ll...I’ll be really sad,” Lance says, and something in his tone draws Keith in, makes his heart pang a little bit, even if Lance is joking for the most part. They stare at each other a moment before Lance playfully hits his arm. “You should go. It would be really fun.”

Keith doesn’t really believe that; a night indoors getting baked with Shiro and watching Madagascar 2 sounds much more appealing, but the idea of Lance being disappointed is enough for Keith to give in. “Fine. I’ll see you there.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Lance loses his balance a little as well, arm grasping onto one of Keith’s shoulders, pulling him to jump in sync. Keith can’t remember the last time he’s been somewhere this loud, can’t remember the last time he was this loud–he doesn’t need to. Lance is clutching around Keith, holding on tight, Keith's fingers grasping to Lance’s shirt, and they’re screaming so loud it hurts, yet somehow they still aren’t loud enough."

With Keith’s cheap motorbike stuck in the shop, he has to resort to asking for a ride to the Homecoming game he promised Lance he’d go to–leaving Shiro and Adam a bit caught off guard. Keith omits as many details as possible, and when they ask why he’s going to a football game, Keith turns to blaming it on the urge to experience his last Homecoming, it’s a high school hallmark after all. They’re awfully suspicious–Shiro even asks if he’s actually going to a football game, multiple times–but they’re too afraid to push for more answers. It’s simply out of character; Keith rarely hangs out in groups of more than 2 or 3 people at a time, and neither Shiro nor Adam can figure out why Keith would suddenly want to go to such a grand event.

While Keith isn’t necessarily looking forward to the football game, a tiny part of him _is_ looking forward to his next session with Lance. The possibility of Keith being able to pull his grade is up is boosting his morale, for the sooner he gets back on track, the better. There’s the fact that Lance isn’t as completely intolerable as Keith originally thought–rather on the contrary. He’s methodical and strategic, smarter than he lets on. He speaks to Keith as an equal, doesn’t make him feel foolish. And when he gets on a roll, there’s no stopping him.

Getting wrapped up in the way Lance interacts with the world is akin to watching water build up and whisk something away. Whether it’s the ebb and flow of an ocean wave or a small rain puddle rushing toward a drain, it inevitably drags Keith along for the ride. When Lance speaks, he’s not speaking to Keith, he’s speaking _with_ him. There’s something in the way he uses his words, the way he wildly gestures, the way his humor and optimism leak into everything–it’s immersive. Keith is totally and completely shut off the rest of the world and enveloped in him.

Time feels suspended but somehow still rushes by when he’s with Lance, making the wait to see him again that much more prolonged. But the sooner the session comes, the sooner Friday comes along with it. You win some you lose some, Keith supposes.

The weekend comes and goes, Monday drags, as Mondays typically do, and Tuesday is unremarkable for the most part, Keith’s mind stuck on the upcoming session for a reason he can’t put his finger on.

“Hey, man,” Lance greets, breezing into the room, a bit flustered like last time. “Sorry I stink and for being kinda late, just finished conditioning and had to run here.”

He starts pulling out all his materials and organizing them frantically. Keith is already set up, having arrived a little earlier than previously. “No problem.”

“Alrighty then,” Lance exhales, hovering his hands over his desk as if he was regaining his balance. “Oh! I have something for you.”

Lance’s grin looks almost devious as he leans over to get something out of his blue backpack, making Keith a tad uneasy. When he finally comes back up, he dumps a thick pile of folders and notebooks onto the desk. He spreads the materials out, each colorful folder matching up with a corresponding colorful notebook. “Been carrying this stuff around all day, my back’s killin’ me.”

Keith’s eyes are wide, brows knitting slightly. “You...these are for me?”

“Yep!” Lance grins. “I told you last time I’d bring you stuff, I’m a man of my word.”

“I really can’t take these from you,” Keith starts.

“Sure you can,” Lance urges. “You have to, I put in all this work, see? I already labeled them with your name, I would’ve labeled your classes too but I’m not sure what you’re taking. And for history, you can get rid of the folder I gave you last week and use it for something else, because I got you a binder! I put some tabs in there and labeled them all by unit!”

Keith is speechless, he doesn’t even know how to react. Lance put in all this work, just so Keith could be a little more organized. All he did was sign up for tutoring Keith in one class, and now he’s going above and beyond, willingly giving supplies to him and putting in effort Keith never asked for. It’s such a small and simple gesture, but it’s more than someone has done for Keith since Shiro took him in–it makes his stomach flutter a little bit, but in a good way. “Lance, I–thank you. Really.”

“Sure, man,” Lance grins, tone genuine. Eyes stay locked for a moment more before Lance looks away, clearing his throat. “So, uh, how ‘bout we start with this week’s lecture notes, yeah?”

They work diligently, Lance moving a mile a minute, Keith just barely keeping up. But Lance is attentive, in tune to Keith’s body language and words. He can tell when Keith is a bit overloaded with information, and Lance is happy to go back and give Keith another run-down. Neither of them had someone truly willing to take their time, to go back and do it over again with enthusiasm. That’s why Lance is so willing to take his time with Keith, and Keith, though he doesn’t articulate it, is appreciative of Lance’s patience.

When Keith’s phone buzzes three times in the span of 10 minutes, he feels obligated to check. As he reaches for it, he whispers, “Sorry.”

“I get it,” Lance reassures him.

Keith unlocks his phone, unconsciously frowning as he reads. One text from Shiro sending him some silly picture of a dog he met on his shift, two from his mother.

 **krolia:** I have to postpone our call tonight.

 **krolia:** I’ll be out of town for the next week or so. Won’t be in touch that much. I’m sorry.

Shaking his head, Keith sighs and flips the phone over with more force than intended.

“Whoa,” Lance chuckles lightly. “Girl problems?”

Keith opens his mouth, but he’s too taken aback by Lance’s comment to say anything.

“Oh, shit.” Lance covers his mouth with a hand, then reaches out with it. “I meant boy problems. I forgot, oh jeez, I’m sorry–” He cuts himself off, and Keith is still giving him this _look_ Lance can’t read. Is it anger? Confusion? Even Keith isn’t sure, he’s merely watching as Lance fumbles around with his mouth. “Shit, that wasn’t–it’s totally not my place to say anything. I didn’t mean to, like, assume, or anything. I just–I’m not trying to be an asshole or, like, make fun of it–I mean you!” As red flushes over his face, Lance slaps a hand over it.

Keith is still staring at Lance, cluelessly. “Uh–”

“I’m not a jackass, or a bigot, I promise,” Lance urges. “I’m bi! I’m not, like, ignorant. I’m really not trying to be offensive, really.”

Speechless, Keith doesn’t say anything, which only spurs Lance on.

“Fuck, you probably don’t care about that. This was all really weird, I’m sorry, dude,” Lance laughs nervously, looking down and twiddling his pencil like crazy.

“You’re…” Keith struggles to find the right words, “You’re fine. You didn’t, y’know, offend me or whatever.”

“Really?” Lance looks up and asks, eyes wide. Keith nods. “Oh, thank God. I hope I didn’t make it weird.”

“Only a little,” Keith chuckles. Lance’s shoulders relax and a small smile begins to show. “I didn’t know you were bi.”

“Yeah,” Lance says, leaning his forehead onto his palm, cringing. “That was kind of out of nowhere. I just didn’t want you to think I’m an asshole.”

With earnest, Keith says, “I definitely don’t think you’re an asshole. You’re anything but.”

Lance looks down, smiling, then wraps an arm around himself, and quietly asks, “If you don’t mind, do you think you can keep that to yourself? The bi thing?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Keith asserts. After Lance murmurs a quiet ‘thanks,’ Keith waits a beat to ask, “So, why tell me? If you’re not out?”

“I mean, I said it so you know I’m not a moron. But I also know that you’re, like, one of the few gay kids that are out and actually cool.”

“Well, I’m not really out by choice,” Keith murmurs before his brain catches up to Lance’s compliment.

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry about that by the way,” Lance says. “Griffin’s a douchebag.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Keith huffs. At the beginning of sophomore year, James Griffin outed Keith in an insulting manner no one likes to look back at. A few years and a fist-fight Keith easily won later, it’s a sore and distant memory. Besides, Keith’s made a pretty nice reputation for himself as the cool gay kid, apparently. “You’re the one who has to play on a team with him.”

Lance shakes his head, “He’s a dick, but he can pitch.”

“Still, surprised your coach let him stay on the team,” Keith mutters. He remembers the anger he felt, the pure rage running through him those months in the fallout of Keith being outed, he begged Adam to kick him off the team, just for a little taste of revenge. When Adam refused, Keith rolled up his sleeves and balled up his fists, waiting for the day James stepped out of line again. When it came, Keith realized the crack of his knuckles on Griffin’s cheek will never change him entirely–and arguably wasn’t the best way to go about their issues, according to Shiro, Adam, and the school’s administration–but Keith will be damned if it wasn’t satisfying as hell.

“So,” Keith hesitates. “I’m ‘cool,’ huh?”

“Yeah, I–I mean,” Lance sputters. “Most of the kids here that are out of the closet are yiff kids.”

Keith has to take a moment to process before laughing heartily, “Are _what_ kids?”

“You know!” Lance giggles, uncrossing his arms. “Yiff kids! The furries!”

“Holy shit,” Keith is struggling slightly for breath, smile wide. “That’s fucking hilarious. Yiff kids, I’m–yiff kids!”

They laugh over the comment for another few minutes, taking a while to catch their breath, breaking out into a giggle again just as they seem to calm down. When the moment has finally passed, Keith’s phone buzzes, _again._

“Oh, my God, leave me alone,” Keith whines, only partially joking.

 **krolia:** When I get back from my trip, let’s do dinner?

Keith rolls his eyes, putting the phone down. He doesn’t have the energy to think of a response.

“So,” Lance nudges Keith’s elbow with his own. “Boy problems or what?”

“No,” Keith says. “Mom problems.”

“Oh,” Lance nods. “She bein’ a bitch? My mom can get kinda bitchy over text.”

“No, no,” Keith urges. “She texts like a robot. Acts like one. That’s, like, half the problem.”

Lance nods, and Keith can sense an unspoken invitation to continue talking. “She’s just...it’s complicated.”

“Try me,” Lance smirks.

Keith looks at him, plainly and unimpressed. He doesn’t want to get into it, but Lance has a small, innocent plea silently tugging at Keith, his eyes are full of some wordless urging backed up by a true intent of care. Sighing, Keith surrenders, speaking quietly and succinctly. “My mom left when I was a baby. I never really thought about it. But then my dad died when I was 8 and–and I got thrown around the system for a while. A few months ago, she came back, and she’s trying to make amends, or whatever. It’s just weird. And it doesn’t help that she interacts with people like she’s void of all human emotion.”

Taking in his words, Lance leans back in his chair. Keith smiles, a little sadly. “Told you it’s complicated.”

“Yeah,” Lance murmurs. “That’s...a tough spot to be in.”

Keith sighs and nods.

“Do you...hold it against her?” He asks, tone curious but laced with a soft concern more than anything.

Shrugging, Keith thinks a moment. “I didn’t use to. But once my dad died I’d always wonder where I’d be if she didn’t leave. Guess that would turn into anger as I thought about the possibility of not having to go from foster to foster.”

“Are you still in a foster?”

“No,” Keith says. “My brother, Shiro, took me in. He’s not my brother by blood, but he–it’s confusing. The point is: he raised me since I was around 12.”

“That’s good, though. You have a family.”

Keith shrugs. “Just not the same. I love him, but it’s easy to get jealous of conventional families, I guess.”

“Hm,” Lance hums, thinking for a second. Before sitting up a little straighter and asking, “Shiro’s your brother? Like, Takashi Shirogane?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“And he’s dating Coach W, right?”

“Yes…” Keith says, curious as to what’s going on in Lance’s head.

“That’s crazy,” Lance chuckles. “When I was, like, 12 or 13, we went on a field trip to some fire station and, you can totally judge me for this, I thought Shiro was the _coolest_ dude I’d ever met, still do. I went on this phase where I was obsessed with firefighting for a few years–he was basically my hero. Then when I joined the high school team and I figured out Shiro and Coach W were together, I lost my mind. My two worlds were colliding and I was _not_ ready for it.”

Keith smiles, chuckling at the coincidence. “It’s hard not to let Shiro influence you like that. I feel like if he doesn’t inspire you or something, you’re hopeless.”

“Yeah!” Lance agrees. “Honestly, when I found out he’s gay, it was really heartwarming.”

“Trust me, I get that. Being out is a million times easier seeing Shiro and Adam.”

They both smile, appreciating the moment, each of them a little happy with how the silence is so unexpectedly comfortable.

“I think,” Lance speaks slowly. “You have a right to be bitter. About your mom.”

Keith looks at Lance up and down, as if there’s a possibility of any dishonestly being visible. No one’s ever told him that before, everyone’s just insisted he move on from his resentment and onto reconciliation, invalidating the years of turbulent upbringing she indirectly caused by walking away.

Lance continues, “You can’t just forgive and forget sometimes. It’s okay to hold onto anger, y’know, as long as it doesn’t take over your whole life and turn you into some miserable person, but I don’t think you owe her any forgiveness, and you don’t really owe her your time either.”

“You think so?” Keith murmurs.

“I do. Obviously, I don’t know the whole story, but you can’t be expected to let something like that go without a struggle. And I don’t think you should. What would that say about you–if you let people take you for granted like that?”

Keith blinks, gathering his thoughts a moment before speaking softly, “I know it wasn’t easy for her to leave–but it wasn’t easy to grow up without her. And it’s not easy to let her in after all that. I mean, she does show that she wants to be a part of my life, but she’s so... _clinical._ I know it’s just how she acts or talks or whatever, but it’s hard to feel like I’m talking to a person around her. It would be easier to spend time with her if it wasn’t like making a business transaction.”

Nodding Lance offers, “I can see that. Do you _want_ to be making this transaction in the first place?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want,” Keith sighs, leaning his elbow on the table and rubbing his thumb and his index finger together. “Part of me doesn’t want to miss out on having a mom, even if it’s kinda half-assed. But part of me doesn’t have the energy to learn how to exist with her in my life, and another part of me doesn’t have the energy to hold onto that resentment. She’s always asking to get dinner and shit–that’s what she’s texting about–but she always bails. She’s literally been bailing since I was born. She _just_ said she can’t talk on the phone for a while because of this business trip she’s going on but wants to buy me dinner when she gets back.”

“What does she do for a living?” Lance tilts his head.

“She’s some bigwig for this massive environmental sustainability company, so she travels all the time,” Keith says. He pauses before adding: “She makes bank.”

That earns a chuckle out of Lance, who then asks, “So, you gonna go to dinner with her?”

“Um,” Keith ponders, unsure. “I don’t know. Obviously, she wants to–I do think she genuinely wants to–and Shiro is always pushing me to spend time with her, but I don’t want spending time with my mom to feel like a chore.”

Lance leans forward on the desk, voice low and honest, “I think it would be worth it. It could be a little awkward at first, but you get to know and get used to someone with time; it doesn’t all just fall into place easily, no matter if they’re robotic or charismatic.”

 _Huh,_ Keith thinks, _that’s pretty hypocritical._ Keith has spent less time with Lance than he has his own mother, and already there’s an ease and bare sincerity to it all than either of them have ever truly known.

 

~ ~ ~

 

“Are you...going to get out anytime soon?” Shiro questions, peering over at Keith sitting with his arms crossed and a pout on his lip.

“Yes.”

Shiro blinks, waiting a few more seconds to add, “Well, Adam and I have reservations at that bistro downtown in, like, 30 minutes, so–”

“I’m leaving soon, chill,” Keith bites.

“Me chill? _You_ chill,” Shiro bites back, chuckling. “If you don’t wanna go, why did you make me give you a ride?”

“Because I wanna go! I’m just–overthinking, or something,” Keith turns to glare out the window, the golden afternoon sun forcing him to squint. Keith watches each person wander the parking lot, decked out head to toe in the red and blue colors of Garrison High, paint dotting their faces, snapbacks on backward, girls wearing a player’s jersey. Spirits are high; fans are expecting a challenging game that the Lions will ultimately win–the perfect end to a perfect Homecoming week.

But Homecoming is exhausting to Keith. Not only is it hard to keep up with the normal hustle and bustle of school in the height of the semester, but keeping track of celebrations and themes and decorations and games and assemblies and everything associated is too much for Keith–he’s always been sensitive to sensory overload.

That’s part of the reason he never really got involved in it, besides, he never really had many friends that were willing to participate anyway. He could respect the fun in it, the way the festivities made everyone a little happier, a little nicer, a smiles a little brighter. He just never happened to take part in it all.

(That didn’t appease Lance, who incredulously interrogated Keith on Monday:

_“It’s Neon Day! Where’s your gear?” He’d exclaimed, sporting a bright pink headband to accent a neon orange tee and shiny blue shorts with highlighter yellow leggings underneath, neon green socks hiked up to his calves, orange sneakers to match the shirt._

_“Where the hell did you even get all that?” Keith changed the subject, swapping out the folders Lance had given him for the others in his locker to put in his bag. They looked like quite the duo, Keith in rather muted attire, nothing outside his usual color scheme, and Lance looking like a package of highlighters yakked all over him, accenting his clear, tanned complexion._

_“Well, the socks are just workout gear, the shorts are my brother Marco’s, the headband and the leggings are my one of my sister’s from who-knows-what, and I just bought this shirt at the craft supply store over the weekend. Oh! The Nike’s are my other brother Luis’, but they’re kinda big on me.”_

_Keith raised his brows and blinked a few times, Lance speaks so fast it sometimes takes a moment to catch up, especially at 7:45 in the morning. “Jesus, how many siblings do you have?”_

_That threw Lance on another tangent, going on and on about his older siblings, and how he’s actually the baby of the family, though he doesn’t feel like it with the wide array of younger nieces and nephews and cousins he has. But that didn’t distract him completely, for as soon as he’s done giving Keith a rather detailed run-down of his family, he asked again: “So, why the hell do you look like you’re going to a really casual funeral?”_

_“I don’t, I just look dull compared to everyone else today. If anything, it makes me stand out more than the neon,” Keith justified, shrugging as he shut his locker and adjusted his bag over his shoulders._

_“Oh, please,” Lance said, giving him an unimpressed glare. “You just don’t have anything neon.”_

_Not entirely true, Keith could’ve stolen one of the brighter items in Shiro’s closet, but Keith has never put any effort into Homecoming before, and he wasn’t planning on starting then. “Maybe so.”_

_Lance shook his head, failing to suppress a grin. His eyes lit up with an idea and he blurted, “Here! You can take this.”_

_Yanking off the headband, Lance hushed Keith, who had been protesting to accepting the item. Lance took a step closer to Keith, brought his hands to Keith’s head, pulling the headband down to his chin to get it under his hair, then gently pulling it back up, pushing Keith’s bangs out of the way. “There ya go! Lookin’ fresh!”_

_Keith pouted at his new accessory, making Lance giggle as he went to jokingly brush under Keith’s chin to tease him. In a cheesy effort to mock Mr. Coran, Lance kidded, “Chin up, lad.”_

_Rolling his eyes, Keith lazily made a futile effort to swat his hand away. “When do you want this back by?”_

_“Keep it,” Lance offered._

_“What? No, it’s your sister’s!”_

_“Rachel probably stole it from Veronica anyway, plus they’re both at college. They won’t miss it,” he insisted. Then, his face lit up with another idea, and a playfully mischievous look took over. “Hang on.”_

_Lance whipped out his phone with a smirk plastered wide on his face, holding up the camera to Keith and asking, “Can I take a Snap?”_

_Keith huffed with sarcasm and exaggeration. “Yeah, whatever. Make it quick.”_

_“Aw, c’mon now, smile!”_

_He rebelled, and instead offered another pout to the camera, scowling in a childish manner. Lance laughed at the result, refusing to delete the photo when Keith made fun of his own face, adding a caption and sending it instead._

_When Keith settled into his desk a few minutes later, he already felt a few eyes on him that tried not to linger for long. Keith never participated in a theme day for Homecoming before, he definitely hadn’t worn a color so bright in public since he could dress himself, and no one in this school besides Adam certainly hadn’t seen his forehead until that moment._

_The slight embarrassment and overthinking quickly dissipated as he checked his Snap, seeing Lance’s story. There he was, scowling and pouty and exposed, pink headband bright and saturated, with the camera pushed up close, but not unflatteringly so, to his face. The caption read simply: “local punk goes pop!” Smiling to himself, he screenshotted the picture._

_One day of half-assed participation wasn’t enough for Lance’s standards for a spectacular Homecoming. So on Tuesday, he brought Keith a colorful lei to match his own for Island Day; on Wednesday, a cheap cowboy hat for Hoedown Day; on Thursday, he gave him a pair of red lion slippers for Pajama Day; on Friday, one of his baseball jerseys for Spirit Day. Each day with a corresponding snap–all of which Keith saved to his phone.)_

Keith wears the pacific blue jersey Lance gave him earlier that morning unbuttoned, an old red Garrison Lions sweatshirt underneath. The theme for the football game is the same as it was for the dress-up theme: school spirit. One Garrison Lions sweatshirt is about all he owns of the school’s merch, so he’s as dressed up as he could be, which feels awkwardly inadequate compared to the students who are dripping in spirit wear.

“Keith,” Shiro urges, poking at his arm. “Seriously, why are you going to this? Crowds aren’t...your thing.”

“One of my friends asked me to,” Keith says, blunt. “It’s my last homecoming. Figured I should go anyway, considering I haven’t gone to one since I was a freshman.”

“ _Nyma_ and _Rolo_ asked you to go to a football game?” Shiro frames the question as more of a statement, disbelief heavy in his voice. He laughs, “There is no way some grunge potheads even _thought_ about going to this type of thing.”

Keith rolls his eyes, “No, of course they didn’t ask me, it was someone else.”

At this, Shiro blinks, raising a brow. “Same friend who gave you the jersey?”

“Mm-hm,” Keith murmurs, still watching the masses meandering through the parking lot.

“Hm,” Shiro says, trying to hide a smirk. “This friend got a name?”

Sensing the new tone, Keith turns his head quickly, glaring at Shiro with chagrin and a small blush. “No.”

Just as Shiro’s about to tease Keith some more, Keith unbuckles his seatbelt, throwing open the door and slamming it shut, uttering, “Thanks for the ride.”

Leaving the car before he was ready was a stupid idea, Keith determines as he walks with his hands in his pockets towards the entrance to the stadium, joining a long line of students and parents alike. Everyone is in groups, laughing with their friends, holding hands with their spouse, tripping over a child clutching their legs. Keith stands alone, quietly, only muttering a small ‘thank you’ to the volunteer checking his student ID and letting him in.

Grade schoolers either run around amongst themselves, throwing a football, playing games; some middle schoolers do the same, but most of them are huddled in groups, talking, giggling, all wanting to be part of the cool crowd, all wanting to be grown up already. Keith isn’t sure if he envies their naivety or not.

Treading through the crowds, he finally makes his way to the bleachers, but has to make his way past the majority of the crowd to reach the student section. As he trudges his way there, he has to sidestep people walking past him along the narrow metal, lunging over spilled popcorn and other various amounts of trash, but he survives. Though, when he looks up to the student section, he regrets not making a plan or texting Lance when he arrived so he’d know where to find him. He scans the crowd, a red and blue sea of familiar and foreign faces all cheering and talking loudly to each other when he hears the shrill of a voice calling to him: “Keith! Hey, Keith!”

Keith looks to the sound of the voice, eyes landing on Lance, not in the front row of the bleachers, but in front of the fan section altogether. It’s standing room only, but the platform in front of the seats is a little less crowded. Lance leans on the fence separating the platform from the seats, standing on something Keith can’t see as he waves his arm wildly, beckoning him. Keith recognizes most of the people around Lance: Hunk next to Lance, Allura and Romelle taking selfies, and some of the other baseball guys, including Ryan Kinkade, watching the field, and James Griffin, who’s looking Keith up and down with an unreadable emotion.

Squeezing past a few classmates, Keith is finally face to face with Lance, who yells into Keith’s ear, “You finally made it, man! I was getting worried!”

Keith tries to talk over the crowd, “Yeah, I didn’t realize I had to come so early, I’m not gonna be able to find a seat.”

“Just chill up here with me!” Lance offers.

James turns his head slightly at that, looking from Lance, to Keith, to Lance again. Keith tries to ignore it. “Are you sure? I don’t wanna, like, intrude or whatever.”

“You’re totally fine! You’re a senior, and the first, like, 4 or 5 rows are Senior territory, and you’re not taking anyone’s spot, so it’s all good!”

Keith reluctantly gives in, leaning on the chest-high wire fence looking over the field. The Junior Varsity game is still going, with the Lions pulling ahead quite a bit, but there’s still 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter. It’s not too cold, so Keith didn’t bring any other jacket, though he realizes the temperature will drop with the sun behind them, with the home team’s bleachers facing East, so the sun doesn’t get in their eyes as it sets, which should be soon, as the sky fades from an orange hue into a washed out blue.

Lance talks fast and loud with natural ease, fluidly weaving Keith into conversation with his friends. It’s familiar territory with Allura as they’ve been lab partners for a while now, and Hunk has such a welcoming personality Keith feels little tension around him, Romelle reminds Keith a tiny bit of Lance, but more effeminate and a bit less expressive in her tone and gestures. Kinkade doesn’t necessarily bother Keith, but he’s so quiet and oddly intimidating, Keith can’t completely relax–especially next to James. He’s talking everyone’s ears off, interrupting Lance often, with his signature cocky demeanor. Given Keith and James’ past encounters, Keith opts to stay quiet for the most part, only laughing or answering a question with a few words at a time.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Keith has only been at the game for an hour, but it feels like at least twice that. Football time goes dreadfully slow with all the time outs and stopping of the clocks, in addition to the wait until the varsity team to come out that drags by. Considering he doesn’t participate much in the conversation and mostly observes, Keith can feel the true pace of time slugging on.

Admittedly, Keith knows pretty much nothing about pretty much no one at the school, thus, he had no idea Lance was one of the fan-section leaders along with Allura and Romelle. If he had known that, he would’ve shown up halfway through the game to avoid cheering, and he thinks he can get out of it innocently enough if he fakes an emergency text from Shiro. Yet, even Keith can feel himself riling up, with Lance’s constant and unadulterated excitement building and the crowd’s hoots and hollers becoming more and more intense as the time draws nearer for the varsity team to take the field.

When they’re finally ready to come out, Keith is squeezed in tight against the fence of the bleachers, pushed up between Lance and Hunk, who are stomping and hollering. Over the speakers, a bell tolls, and the varsity team stomps out, helmets on and faces cast down, hidden by the helmets, single file. Then, the opening chords of an ACDC song Keith is barely familiar begins to play, and Keith laughs, Lance taking notice and pushing his shoulder, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Keith chuckles. “This is just really dramatic.”

“Oh, be nice,” Lance teases, waving his hand out, gesturing to the field. “For some of these douchebags, this is their peak!”

Keith, laughing, shakes his head, continuing to watch the players march, then suddenly rush the field and form a giant huddle of testosterone and intensity jumping up and down collectively. With the team, the crowds cheering gets louder, Lance screaming in his ear. When he sees Keith standing motionless and silent, he pushes him playfully, “Get into it, Keith! Get _loud_!”

Something in Keith can’t refuse. So it starts as laughter, nudging Lance back, then it morphs into some golf clapping, and somehow transforms into Keith stomping his feet and yelling along with the fans. But it dies down, and 20 more minutes are put up onto the clock, indicating when the game actually starts, which seems like a century. Keith kinda has to pee, and he still feels a little out of his element, but it’s like part of his shell cracked; it’s easier to add some witty comment to conversation, or tell a funny story relating to whatever they were talking about, or laugh louder when something hilarious happens. Keith lets Lance take a Snapchat–the first picture with him Keith smiled in. He likes the picture, so of course he screenshots, but then he takes out his own phone and gets a picture with Lance as well, and even a video scanning over the crowd with the local Garrison Lions filter on it to match the dozens of other Snaps students have taken already.

They all wrap each other’s arms around one another’s shoulder, singing and yelling the words to Star Spangled Banner as they all sway to the marching band’s rendition of the national anthem, crowd terribly offbeat yet patriotic nonetheless. Feet stomp and voices holler and whoop when the song ends, chanting, “USA! USA! USA!” for the sake of cheering some more. Someone brought a stereo, and although the back of the crowd certainly can’t hear it, the front few sections happily sing along in tandem, loud enough to get the entirety of the bleachers to create an obnoxious cacophony of Sweet Caroline and some other classic and recent hits ringing through the stadium.

Keith admits, as quiet as quiet can be in that environment, that he barely knows any cheers when Lance notes they’re gonna start doing crowd cheers soon. “Relax!” Lance urged, smirking. “That’s why you have me: your friendly neighborhood fan-section leader! And Allura and Romelle or whatever.”

They chuckle at the glares from the girls, and Lance leans down to pick up a red non-electric megaphone that’s really just a big plastic cone. Allura picks up an actual megaphone, and Romelle has the same gadget as Lance, but in blue. Allura asks the crowd with gusto if they’re ready, and announces they’ll be doing the ‘I believe’ cheer first, foreign to Keith. Lance turns to him just before they start, saying, “Just follow our lead!”

The crowd is still chattering, but tempers down as Allura counts to 3, and her, Romelle, and Lance, all shout, “I!”

The crown responds: “ _I!_ ”

Oh, Keith can kind of see where this is going, if he remembers the last time he went to a football game well enough.

“I believe!” Shout the leaders.

 _“I believe!”_ The crowd echos. Keith remembers the chant in full now.

“I believe that!”

 _“I believe that!”_ Keith joins in this time.

“I believe that we!”

 _“I believe that we!”_ Keith cups his mouth to amplify his voice with the crowd.

“I believe that we will win!”

The crowd goes absolutely insane.

 _“I believe that we will win! I believe that we will win!”_ They all cry, jumping and screaming, repeating the cheer over and over. With everyone bouncing around, it’s hard for Keith to keep balance, but he doesn’t care, because he believes that they will win–anything else is insignificant.

Lance loses his balance a little as well, arm grasping onto one of Keith’s shoulders, pulling him to jump in sync. Keith can’t remember the last time he’s been somewhere this loud, can’t remember the last time he _was_ this loud–he doesn’t need to. Lance is clutching around Keith, holding on tight, Keith's fingers grasping to Lance’s shirt, and they’re screaming so loud it hurts, yet somehow they still aren’t loud enough.

The cheer dies down, and they do a few more before the game starts, including ‘The Rollercoaster’, which just involves swaying obnoxiously side to side in whatever direction the leaders move their arms, yelling variations of ‘whoa’ and ‘ah’.

When the game finally starts, they greet kickoff with a loud burst of a long held ‘ohhh!’  with their fingers held out, dancing and wiggling, a tradition done every time the teams switch possession of the ball, Keith learns. The ball is kicked, and the crowd thrusts their arms down violently, cheering as it flies through the air, marking the start of the game.

Keith knows the basics of football, but Lance is much more well versed in sports, and he explains the intricacies and detailed rules to Keith as he tries his best to keep track of it all. They talk loud and cheer louder; Lance and Keith talk mostly among themselves, but the group joins in, and Griffin and Kinkade eventually wander off to go hang with other friends, easing Keith’s tension to the point he doesn’t feel any at all anymore. They laugh about everything, they talk about food and family, gossip about classmates and teachers, discuss premature college plans, cheer when called for. Keith buys Lance nachos and splits it with him, Lance offers to share with Keith the water bottle he snuck in, they go off to the bathroom together, taking idiotic selfies in the dirty confines of the restroom.

Keith’s cheeks hurt from smiling, and his abdomen feels almost sore from laughing, and his throat is completely raw from yelling, it’s cold out but he’s overheated among all the bodies, and his ears are ringing from the constant noise, but he feels electric. It’s the best kind of hurt, Keith decides. The entirety of the game, Keith never felt a glimpse of sensory overload, and he doesn’t really know why, but doesn’t seem to care either. He doesn’t remember the score, he just remembers they won, and the euphoria he felt for a team he never cared about before that moment. He feels infinite as he screams, yet limited to his own body as he’s pressed up tightly with so many others. It was liberating, despite being so confined. Keith find he wants to feel that again, and again, and again.

But football season doesn’t last forever, and neither does high school–and there’s some seed in Keith beginning to grow, suggesting to him that maybe it wasn’t the game or the cheers or the crowd that made it so freeing and endless, but the people within it. And that he can’t possibly have that forever–nothing lasts forever, especially not for Keith.

The experience leaves him a little breathless, a little dizzy, and _very_ hungry; when he mentions his appetite, Hunk offers, “Come on over to my house after! Lance always comes over after games, so do Allura and Romelle, we usually get ice cream and eat whatever, then sleep in my basement, you should come!”

As Keith opens his mouth to reply, Lance jumps in suddenly, throwing an arm over Keith’s shoulder, “Yeah, man! You gotta try Hunk’s cooking–his post-game snacks are a _delicacy._ ”

“Um,” Keith thinks for a moment. Shiro would not be willing to drive Keith’s ass all over town like that, and Keith doesn’t have his motorbike. “I don’t really have a ride.”

“I’ll drive you!” Lance chirps with urgency. “Um, I mean, Hunk has to go home first with his family while we get ice cream at some drive-thru place, and Allura and Romelle drove together, but I drove myself, so I totally have room!”

“Sure, okay,” Keith shrugs, pulling out his phone to text Shiro his plans, looking down to hide a small smile forming.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Lance likes punk rock, Keith learns, about 5 minutes after getting in his car, which is a lot cleaner than Keith expected out of a jock with such chaotic energy. A few seconds after Keith gets his seatbelt on and Lance starts the car, he plugs his aux in, blasting something right out of 2007. It takes a moment to process the opening guitar riff, but Keith recognizes it somehow, as if the music pulled out a memory Keith forgot he had.

“What is this?” Keith asks, turning it up a touch.

“You like it?”

Keith...doesn’t know. “It’s just, I don’t know, familiar?”

“It’s good, admit it.”

Keith smiles and rolls his eyes, refusing to answer.

“Just say it’s good!” Lance chuckles.

“I just know I’ve heard it before, it’s not bad” he admits. “What is it?”

 _“Boys Like Girls,”_ Lance says. “All my siblings grew up when this stuff was really popular, it just kinda stuck with me. Makes me nostalgic, I guess. In the good way.”

That’s exactly how Keith would word it. The melody’s a distant memory, a happy one, nostalgic and sweet. Keith hasn’t heard this song in years, definitely doesn’t remember hearing it the first time, but he can recite every lyric with ease. Suddenly, the memory completely resurfaces as Keith turns the knob a little more. “Yeah, yeah, Shiro would listen to this sorta music all the time. I mean, I didn’t really grow up with it but...it’s definitely nostalgic.”

“In the good way,” Lance points out.

“In the good way,” Keith agrees, sitting back.

They listen for a moment, humming and murmuring the lyrics as they inch through the crowded parking lot. Keith smirks, _“Boys Like Girls,_ huh? That seems like a pretty ironic name considering how gay this car is.”

Lance scoffs, but it turns into a giggle a second later. “Don’t hate! It’s a good band!”

Keith raises a hand in defense, “Never said it wasn’t!”

The parking lot is full and nearly at a standstill from the post-game crowd, leaving plenty of time for Lance to go on a tangent about the intricacies of punk pop in the early 2000s. _Boys Like Girls, All-American Rejects, Blink-182,_ names and melodies of songs Keith has long forgotten, but he finds himself happy to have those memories pulled back up. The music brings back the long-missed and chaotic simplicity of childhood.

When they finally reach the entrance of the school, Lance veers left instead of right, away from the rest of the crowd. The route he chooses has more farmland than road or buildings, lined with wooden power lines and hills upon hills of land for cattle to roam and crops to grow.

“Where you goin’?” Keith asks.

“No traffic when you take the back way,” Lance says, one hand on the wheel as he begins to cruise a little.

“Isn’t it the same amount of time?”

“Yeah, but I’d just rather be moving down a longer road than inching down a shorter one, y’know?” Lance shrugs.

“Hm,” Keith hums. “Fitting.”

“What does that mean?” Lance chuckles.

“You just never stop moving,” Keith says, like it’s a fact of life, because it is.

Lance nods and shifts slightly in his seat, but something in his demeanor is off, and he doesn’t carry on the conversation. Keith feels as if he did something wrong. It’s such a tiny change in behavior, but Keith can sense it. He almost ignores it in favor of not risking anything awkward, but Lance is always so inviting, so welcoming to whatever Keith has to say, so Keith volleys it back, asking, “You good?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Lance nods, shaking whatever was bothering him off as he adjusts in his seat, turning on his brights. Keith continues to stare, and Lance can feel his eyes on him.

“You’re being weird.”

“Am not,” Lance refuses.

“Are so,” Keith insists.

“Am not,” Lance says again, but with a smile, as if to brush whatever is poking at him off as a joke.

“Okay, fine,” Keith looks away from the dark expanse of the corn fields, pulling out a tactic Shiro has used on him countless times. “You’re not being weird.”

Lance sneaks a glance at him, playfully vexed. “You’re good, I’ll give you that.”

Keith raises his brows and nods, exactly what Shiro would do.

Lance surrenders with a huff. “It’s just, like–ugh, this is stupid.”

“Yeah?” Keith tilts his head, now he’s getting somewhere.

Lance stutters, “I tend to–y’know–annoy people. By moving all the time, and talking a lot, and stuff.”

His voice drops off at the last part of the sentence, and Keith’s understands. “I didn’t mean it like that–”

“I know you didn’t,” Lance affirmed. “Mostly my siblings and sometimes other kids growing up wouldn’t exactly make fun of me for it, but they’d tell me to stop all the time, or get frustrated with me, tell me to ‘slow down’ or ‘chill out’ and shit...it just...I don’t know.”

“It’s easier to be made fun of, feels less serious that way.”

“I guess, yeah. I know it’s petty now, but as a kid it hurt more, y’know? And that sticks with you as you grow up, you still feel the same way as a kid but you know it’s ridiculous to worry about now. But I really have calmed down a lot.”

“Did you change because you got older or did you change because people wanted you to?” Keith challenges. Lance opens his mouth, but can’t seem to find the right words. “Or do you not know?”

“I guess I don’t know,” Lance admits. “Maybe it was both.”

“Maybe,” Keith settles, pondering the situation a little more before offering an apology. “Lance, seriously. I wasn’t making fun of it. It’s just how you are, I like it. Good change of pace.”

Lance thanks the heavens it’s too dark to see his face reddening at the compliment, but he knows Keith may very well end up like everyone else: tired of and overwhelmed by him. Keith senses his unsettled state, so he adds, “I mean it. I–I guess I get what it’s like to be too much for people. It’s lonely when nobody wants to help, but that doesn’t make you less deserving of, y’know, basic human connection.”

When Lance doesn’t respond, Keith takes a moment, scanning over the empty land ahead to conjure up his words before speaking again. “I can be too much for people too, not in the same way you are, though. Just...growing up, I never had it, I don’t know, _easy._ And I was pissed about that, so I, um, acted out. A lot. It was hard–to control that. I mean, you remember that fight with James during Sophomore year. I _never_ had gotten like that with anyone before, except maybe this one prick homophobe foster-dad I had, but he doesn’t count because–” Keith stops himself from rambling, taking a breath. He doesn’t know what makes him open up like this, what it is about Lance that makes it okay for Keith to admit this out loud, doesn’t know if he likes it.

“I don’t know why I’m that way. Maybe, I’m naturally untrusting because my mom left me? Then my dad...I never had anything permanent, so, I had to grow up fast. No one really treated me like a kid, and no one let _you_ act like one. But we’re _still_ kids–we’re still so young and I think we should just enjoy that, just do whatever stupid shit kids do. So long as, like, no one gets hurt or whatever.”

Lance scoffs, a smile breaching that cold look he had just a few seconds ago. “Yeah. For sure, enjoy being kids, get into some teenage shenanigans! Fuck the police!”

Changing the song and turning the knob on the radio to a ridiculous volume, Lance bobs his head, and Keith starts laughing. The music floats through the air, softer electric guitar building before the drum beat is brought in. They sing the first verse as well as they can but it’s more of a murmur as they don’t completely remember the lyrics. Lance pushes the gas a little more, the car moving faster down the desolate backroads, stomachs swooping as they float down hills, the brightness of the headlights the only thing lighting their path.

Keith rolls down the window, Lance follows suit. The chorus hits, and they’re screaming the lyrics as loud as they can, but can barely hear themselves shouting off-key with the music blasting and wind whipping in their ears. Lance lets his hand stick out the window, slack as the wind forces it back, Keith leans out the side, poking his head out, resting it on his forearms, squinting against the cool wind hitting his face.

_Throw it away, forget yesterday_

_We'll make the great escape_

_We won't hear a word they say_

_They don't know us anyway_

_Watch it burn, let it die_

_'Cause we are finally free tonight_

Their throats are raw, and the lyrics mean nothing. They’re not running away, or seeking any sort of liberation–they’re just a couple of kids looking for an excuse to forget whatever simplicity their lives have and make it even simpler for a glimpse of a time. The music holds no significance; it happens to be a captivating melody fitting for shouting to while speeding down a seemingly infinite and empty road, littered with bumps and grass overtaking the shoulder, smell of autumn and rain and burning leaves distant but noticeable.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Hunk’s basement is freezing, but spacious. A large flat screen TV, numerous gaming consoles, a kitchenette, and abundant sitting room. Keith feels wiped out after the game, but that doesn’t stop him or the rest of the group from feasting on milkshakes and malts, nibbling on some snacks Hunk made for them.

They fawn over Hunk’s culinary skill, smiling and laughing, playing some video games, which apparently is Hunk’s and Lance’s forte. Allura has some skills, but her, Romelle, and Keith stick to the sidelines, adding humorous commentary as Hunk and Lance duke it out.

But Keith is getting sleepy, and he finds himself drifting in and out of focus, no longer listening to the conversations, even as they die down. Hunk turns on a movie, and Keith is perched up, arms crossed, legs crossed. His head bobs, and eventually tilts to the right at an uncomfortable angle and as he drifts off.

When he wakes, the movie credits are playing, his neck aches, and his legs hurt from being crossed for so long, but there’s a warm and heavy weight against him, and someone has draped a fuzzy blanket over his body. Keith lifts his head up, looking around the dim room to find everyone else asleep: Hunk on a couch too short for him, Allura and Romelle facing each other, legs entangled, as they lie on a futon, and Lance, settled against Keith, head resting on his left shoulder.

Lance looks so peaceful and child-like, cozy and wrapped up in a blanket, breath slow. Taking Lance’s comfort over precedence of his own, Keith doesn’t move other than to uncross his legs and settle them on the coffee table across from him.

However, his miniscule adjustment is enough to rouse Lance, who wakes with a small inhale. He lifts his head from Keith, looking over at him with drowsy eyes that widen when he realizes the position he was in. His voice is groggy, “Oh, sorry.”

“’S okay,” Keith whispers. Lance scoots away from Keith, leaning onto his other side, grabbing a pillow from the floor and curling up to take over half the couch.

Keith follows suit, bunching up into a ball at the other end of the couch, pulling the blanket over his shoulders. He stares at the wall for an hour before falling back into a dreamless and restless slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gonna be real here i miss high school and this is a fat nostalgic self projection
> 
> anyway im gonna try and update this thang every 1-2 weeks but life is messy bear with me
> 
> here's my [tumblr](https://lancebased.tumblr.com/)
> 
> please leave kudos, comments, share, tell your friends, all that jazz! luv u all


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance’s head is still leaning back against the cushion, but he turns his neck in a lazy effort to meet Keith’s gaze. The hue of the street lamps and the cut of his short brown hair still frames his face perfectly, his eyes look a little puffy, his cheeks are highlighted with wet streaks, and his lashes look long with wet tears soaking them and reflecting the light, adding a glint to his eyes; Lance is always rather dashing, but he looks unfairly pretty when he cries, Keith can’t help but note.

Lance is an early riser–he has a routine and no one can stray him from it. He rouses everyone at 8, when his alarm starts blaring. Everyone grumbles, Keith doesn’t even open his eyes until Lance taps him, kindly offering him a ride home. Keith complains a little in the car, rubbing his eyes and frowning the whole way home, mumbling about being up at such an ungodly hour on a Saturday. That doesn’t stop Lance from listing his excuses anyway: he has to be home to watch his brother’s kids for a few hours, plus he forgot to wash his face last night (yes, he brings face-wash to football games because he knows he won’t be going home to complete his skin care routine, though he forgot some last night), and he needs to shower and get ready for tonight anyway.

Tonight, for the dance, Keith recalls, Lance is going to Homecoming with Jenny Shaybon. He originally didn’t want a date to his Senior Homecoming, but Lance had it good for her Freshman year, so forgive him if he had a soft spot for her, especially when she asked him so sweetly and with a chaste kiss he’d been dreaming of on and off for years. Lance asks Keith if he’s going to the dance, but, clearly, that is not Keith’s forte. Besides, he promised Krolia he’d go out to dinner with her tonight.

The laptop screen in front of Keith dims after not being active for a few minutes. Moving his hand from under his chin to move the cursor, Keith doesn’t take his eyes away from the screen. Before him lies a document, a list full of potential colleges and their estimated costs. Keith has only visited a 3 out of the 12 in person, the others are a few of the appealing schools Hunk, Allura, or Romelle have talked about. Every single college Lance has shown interest in is listed as well.

It’s overwhelming to say the least. Keith has no clue what he wants to do with his life, and therefore no clue on what he should study. His grades aren’t bad, but they’re nothing that incentivize many schools to throw money at him, but he assumes he’ll get something from federal aid due to his...parental and financial situation.

He doesn’t know what to look for program-wise, location-wise, finance-wise, anything-wise. All he knows is what he doesn’t know. So, he looks to everyone else around him for insight, but they all have goals, majors, professions all picked out, guiding them along. Lance offered to help him write and revise any application or scholarship essays, and for that, Keith is thankful. But even with the prospect of Lance aiding him through the college-search, Keith is left uneasy and, frankly, afraid.

The list doesn’t change, no new revelations reveal themselves, no matter how hard Keith stares. He’s spent the day writing essay after essay, filling out the same information on different applications. CommonApp is a godsend, letting him fill it out once and send it to various schools, as if Keith even knows where to send it to.

Glaring at the list a moment longer, he feels a headache coming on from staring at the screen so long. He slams the laptop shut and goes to shower.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Surprisingly enough, Keith doesn’t feel terribly ridiculous in his outfit. He’d been snapping Lance back and forth, asking for advice on what to wear to dinner, and they decided to go with something casual. Black jeans ( _ no  _ rips, Lance emphasized), burgundy v-neck quarter sleeve, black shoes; simple, but not messy.

Shiro drives Keith the to sushi restaurant Krolia suggested, Keith’s dread palpable on the way there. They sit in the parking lot for a few as they arrived a tad early, plus Keith doesn’t feel like getting out of the car quite yet anyway. Shiro doesn’t talk much, only asks him about how the football game and Hunk’s house was, pestering him with questions about the new people Keith’s been hanging around. He doesn’t seem tense about it though, and that’s how Keith knows Shiro asked Adam, being the observant teacher that he is, what he knew about Keith’s newfound acquaintances.

Keith sticks to short answers, scrolling fast through his phone, barely listening to Shiro. As he scans his feed, he gets an incoming text.

**lance:** hope ur robot mom isnt too weird tonight lol!! try to have fun tho! its only gonna be shitty if you let it be shitty

Trying to hide his smile from Shiro, Keith types back:

**keith:** thanks, try not to get jenny shaybon pregnant

That earns a quick response from Lance.

**lance:** mmm dont think we have to worry about that

**lance:** if youre free after lets hang maybe? theres an after party at griffins but that sounds horrid. 

**keith:** im down

**keith:** now go dance ur ass off

**lance:** will do!!!!

 

~ ~ ~

 

“And your school-work? How’s that going?” Krolia asks, popping another sushi roll into her mouth.

“Um, alright, I guess,” Keith says, wiping his mouth off. “Honestly, not great. I had to get some tutoring for history.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

Keith smiles, “Really good, actually. I went into it pretty pessimistic, but it’s...a lot better than I thought?”

“How so?” Krolia tilts her head.

“It’s student led, so I thought it was gonna be some preppy kid judging me on my crappy grades, but my tutor’s, um, really cool.”

“Oh, good. So it’s worth it?”

“Yeah,” Keith nods, and he’s not really sure why, but something’s pressing him to keep talking about Lance. “The tutor, Lance, he’s a good guy. We’ve been hanging out lately. He’s a lot more,” he searches for the right words, “genuine...than my other friends.”

“Why? What are they like?” Sheesh, she always asks so many questions. But he stops the aggravation forming, remembering Lance’s advice.

“Just…boring, I’ve realized. I don’t really have fun with them, and they’re not the greatest people to hang around,” Keith says.

“Hm. Well,” Krolia hums. “You deserve a good friend.”

Keith looks away shyly, almost feeling guilty for agreeing with her. “It’s not just Lance, there’s Hunk, and Allura, and Romelle. They’re all a lot of fun to be around.”

“And you met them through Lance?”

Keith nods, chewing his food. Something’s off in the way Krolia looks at him, it’s almost mischievous. “Tell me more about him. What do you guys do? What’s he like?”

“Um,” Keith swallows, thinking. “We’ve only been hanging out for a little while now. We went to the Homecoming game then out for ice cream and slept over at Hunk’s house last night, that was a lot of fun. Lance is...hyperactive, I guess, in a good way. Really playful, and kind. He’s pretty cute.”

As soon as Keith realizes he let those last words slip out, he regrets it. His mouth stays open, moving, but making no sound. Krolia’s chopsticks are completely still holding the sushi roll before she puts it down and says, “Oh! So...it’s...like that?”

Keith’s lips twitch as if to say something, but he doesn’t really know what he expects to come out. His jaw snaps shut, and he knits his brows as he looks helplessly at Krolia. But he stops for a moment, letting his mind catch up. He thinks back to the first session he had with Lance, and how he enthralled Keith within just a few minutes. He’d been genuine and supportive and so intensely captivating, something about Lance just lures Keith in so easily, so completely. It’s easy to forget about anything in the outside world when Lance is with him, all encompassing and warm.

As he thinks, Keith finds he can’t get enough of how Lance’s eyes light up when he gets to rant about something he’s passionate about, the way he laughs, the way he makes Keith laugh. His air is nostalgic, from the music he listens to, to the welcoming company he offers freely, something Keith hadn’t felt since the days he’d hop off the bus, running up the driveway and into his father’s arms. Lance lets him feel childlike, and with him comes a lighthearted ease to simply exist comfortably yet ready to do something new.

They haven’t spent much time with each other, but Keith keeps finding that he can’t wait until the next time, and the next time, and the next. He takes a breath, smile soft, and says, “Yeah, I think it’s like that.”

Krolia smiles back, sweet and honest. Clearing his throat, Keith treads lightly as he speaks, “I’m gay, obviously. If you haven’t already figured  _ that  _ one out. But, um, I know that it can be, y’know, something that parents are really, I don’t know–”

“Keith,” Krolia tries to  interrupt. It doesn’t stop him.

“A-and you don’t have a lot of stake in this, so. If you’re not gonna stick this out, I’d rather we just cut it off sooner rather than later.”

Krolia inhales, a look on her face Keith has never seen before. “Keith, I’m here for the long run. I’m not leaving, ever again. Unless, that’s what you want. But I  _ do _ want to be here. I’ve missed out on so much, and every day I think about that, but I can’t dwell. You’re my son, I love you, I always will. I’m not going anywhere.”

Keith looks at her a moment longer, soaking in her words. Then, he looks down, clears his throat, chews his cheeks, a nervous habit he’s had since he was little. Under the table, he rubs his thumb and his index finger together furiously, friction heating up his hand. He takes a sip of water.

“Are you okay?” Krolia asks, concern evident.

“Y-yeah,” Keith mutters, willing the lump aching in his throat to go down.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Maybe spending time with Krolia won’t be a chore, maybe Lance, Shiro, and Adam were all right in pointing out nothing will get better between Keith and Krolia if it’s one-sided, maybe Keith will find it easier to go to her, to tell her whatever it is kids talk about with their parents, and maybe, one day, he’ll even call her Mom.

Laying flat on his bed, leg hanging off, Keith lets his eyes close. He doesn’t think about what life would’ve been like if Krolia had been there, but rather what it’s going to be like with her there instead. However, his daydreaming is interrupted by a few buzzes from his phone.

**lance:** hey man are you still out with your mom?

**keith:** no i just got back a few mins ago. whats up?

**lance:** did you still wanna hang?

**keith:** yeah but its only 8, doesnt the dance go til 10?

**lance:** it does but i just dont wanna be here anymore

**lance:** are you able to come pick me up? like asap?

Keith calls down to Shiro, asking for his car for the night. Shiro obliges, but advises him to be careful.

**keith:** yeah ill come get you

**keith:** is everything okay?

**lance:** yeah

**lance:** i mean

**lance:** ill tell you when you get here

**keith:** okay im omw, be there in 15-20 mins

**lance:** thank you so so so sosososo s o sooooooooooo much

 

~ ~ ~

 

When Keith pulls up to the school, he finds Lance sitting on the curb, elbows on his bunched up knees, staring at the black pavement in front of him. A few students mill about, going to their cars, hanging outside to get some fresh air, but Lance sits alone, watching the world go by. Keith pulls up to him, rolling the window down, and greeting him with a small, “Hey.”

Lance smiles softly and rises to his feet, dragging himself to the car. The suit fits him well, black slacks and shoes, black tie loosened, complimenting a dark blue button up rolled to his elbows. Keith tries not to be too obvious as he looks Lance up and down, indulging himself a little. Lance settles in, buckling up, leaning his head against the headrest, and exhaling long and slow.

Something is off. Keith could see it in the way Lance sat hunched over by himself on the curb, in the way he slunk to his car, in the way he sits now, small, almost defeated.

“You good?” Keith asks, treading lightly.

Barely nodding and looking over to Keith with a forced smile, Lance says, “I’m good. Thank you for coming to get me.”

Keith purses his lips tightly. He knows something must’ve went down, but knows better than to push for an explanation that Lance doesn’t even owe him. Instead, he throws the car into gear, heading out of the parking lot with no real destination.

“You hungry?” Keith asks.

Lance nods, “Starving, actually.”

“Cool, where do you wanna go?”

“Mm,” Lance teeters. “I’m stuck between Firehouse Subs and Portillo’s.”

“Up to you,” Keith says. “I’m not picky.”

Lance hums, thinking. “Let’s do subs. I had enough grease and ice cream last night.”

“Sounds good,” Keith agrees. “You can have the aux if you want.”

“No, this is good. I like Rico Nasty _ ,”  _ Lance says, leaning to turn up the volume a touch, music bumping through the speakers. “She makes me wanna break shit.”

“I feel that,” Keith chuckles. As the song passes and Keith cruises, an idea pops in his head. Hesitating to ask, Keith’s voice cracks slightly when he speaks next. “Hey, um, do you have to be anywhere in the morning? ‘Cuz if you don’t, we can just hang at my house, maybe get baked.”

Rolling down the window and sticking his hand out to let it catch the wind, Lance nods, “Yeah, I’m down. That sounds perfect.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

They settle back into the car, now with sandwiches and chips in possession. Keith starts the engine, plugs his phone in for music, and goes to reach for the seatbelt. He hesitates a moment before letting the belt go slack and slip out of his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, Keith can see Lance, looking shrunken, as if he doesn’t want to be seen.

The parking lot is nearly empty, lit with the dim light of a few street lamps. They’re alone, but being in a public space makes it feels slightly exposed. Yet, being tucked away in the confines of a car adds a level of intimacy, so it only feels natural for Keith to turn music down to a nearly inaudible volume and ask Lance, “What happened tonight?”

“Hm, what?” Lance murmurs, pulled out of a daydream as he looks away from the window. Shadows and a soft orange hue dance across his face, framing his cheeks just so. “Oh. It’s...nothing. I’m over it.”

“No, you’re not,” Keith deadpans. “If you were over it you’d be...I don’t know. Not this.”

Lance looks down and smiles. Keith softens his tone, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. It just might feel better to let it out, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees, clearing his throat. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“I always am,” Keith smirks, Lance huffs a small laugh in response. “Now tell me what’s up.”

Inhaling and dragging out a long exhale, Lance leans back in his seat. “Jenny Shaybon sucks.”

Keith waits silently, knowing Lance will continue. Lance talks low, looking at the glove compartment and out the windshield to avoid Keith’s gaze. “I...I’ve had a crush on her for, like, ages, but it kinda faded the past couple of years. And I didn’t really want a date for Homecoming this year but...I don’t know. I just agreed to go with her. I was on the spot and–it doesn’t matter. That’s not the important part,” Lance shakes his head, then adjusts in his seat to make himself a bit more comfortable, turning to look Keith directly in the eye. “Okay, so, you can’t tell  _ anyone  _ this, Keith. Pinky promise.”

Keith glances at Lance’s finger stinking in his face before latching his own to it, “Uh, yeah, you got it.”

Sighing again and letting his pinky linger before releasing, Lance continues. “On Thursday, Ryan came over to work this project–”

“Ryan who? Kinkade?” Keith interrupts.

“Yeah,” Lance confirms, looking down again. “We did our work, finished the project, whatever. So, we were just hanging out in my room, watching some TV, talking, and...then he...we kissed. Somehow. It just happened. And it was really good, and sweet, and I...kept going. We just, y’know, made out. It was...I’ve never done anything with a boy before, Keith. He was the first boy I’d ever kissed, one of the first I’d ever crushed on.”

“Okay,” Keith says, trying his hardest to remain indifferent. “So…?”

“So, the past few days, we haven’t talked a lot, I’m trying to be low-key, and he’s just a naturally quiet guy anyway. We didn’t really talk at the game, and I didn’t see him again until tonight, at the dance. It wasn’t awkward, it was pretty much the opposite. We kept, I don’t know, flirting? Just being touchy and...making really tense eye contact all night, and complimenting each other, that kind of thing. I thought I wasn’t being obvious but…”

Lance stops short, choking on his words. “Jenny figured it out, I guess. She was so mad, she called me a–”

Again, Lance can’t finish his sentence. Keith wants to reach out, maybe offer a comforting touch, but before he can, Lance is talking again. “We kinda fought about it, but in private, thank God. No one else heard, and she said she’d keep it to herself but...who knows.”

“Lance,” Keith says, understanding the uncontrollable waves of emotion he must be feeling, the unsettling imbalance looming over him. “I am so,  _ so  _ sorry, you don’t deserve–”

“That’s not even the worst part,” Lance nearly whispers. Keith snaps his mouth shut, waiting for Lance to go on. Closing his eyes, Lance leans his head in his hands, elbows in his lap, as if to hide. “When we were in my room...my-my dad walked in.”

“Oh,” Keith breathes. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Lance mutters, voice muffled by his hands.

“And he saw–?”

“Everything, yes,” Lance’s voice cracks. “There’s no way he didn’t. Ryan literally had his hands up my shirt.”

“Fuck,” Keith sighs, unsure of what to say next. Lance speaks before he has to decide.

“I haven’t talked to him since,” Lance sniffles, rubbing his palms into his eyes. “When my family eats together, he won’t talk to me, he won’t even acknowledge me when I’m in the room. He won’t speak to me at  _ all.  _ It’s been, like, 3 days.”

“Have...have you tried talking to him first?” Keith asks, sympathetic.

“God, no. Where would I even start? _ ‘Hey, Dad, I know you just walked in on your son sucking face with another dude, but have you seen my phone charger?’”  _ Lance scoffs, throwing his hands in the air as he tosses his neck back against the headrest. “I don’t know what to fucking  _ do.  _ Everything is just piling up. All this college bullshit, baseball practice and school is kicking my ass, and now  _ this?  _ I can’t even go to my own parents for help!”

Keith’s heart pangs with empathy, he’d never been able to imagine Lance, so well-grounded and happy-go-lucky, in such a distraught state. Reaching in his sandwich bag to pull out some napkins, Keith offers them to Lance, who takes them with a quiet ‘thanks’ and wipes his puffy eyes.

“Does your mom know?” Keith tries.

Lance shrugs, “I don’t know. I’ve been avoiding them both.”

“And your siblings?”

Lance shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Rachel and Veronica are at college, and Luis and Marco don’t live with us anymore. They all came home this weekend for Homecoming and visit all the time anyway but...they’ve been acting pretty much the same. They knew something was up. They asked about it, but I didn’t tell them anything.”

“I think that’s a good place to start,” Keith offers. “I know I wasn’t really in the same situation because I didn’t really have anyone else to tell but...talking to your siblings could do some good. They know your parents as much as you do, they’d know how to help. Plus, when it comes to family things, it’s easier to tell someone closer in age, I think.”

Lance’s head is still leaning back against the cushion, but he turns his neck in a lazy effort to meet Keith’s gaze. The hue of the street lamps and the cut of his short brown hair still frames his face perfectly, his eyes look a little puffy, his cheeks are highlighted with wet streaks, and his lashes look long with wet tears soaking them and reflecting the light, adding a glint to his eyes; Lance is always rather dashing, but he looks unfairly pretty when he cries, Keith can’t help but note.

“Yeah,” Lance croaks. “You’re right. They’ll know what to do.”

Even though Lance agrees, something unsettling still hangs in the hair. There’s still something Lance needs to hear.

“Hey, come on now,” Keith nudges Lance’s shoulder. “You’ll get past this. I promise.”

Lance smiles wearily and looks down, whispering, “What am I gonna do if my family hates me for this?”

Closing his eyes, Keith wills the small lump in his throat to go down. The empathy is overwhelming. After taking a few seconds to collect his thoughts, he talks slowly and surely, “They’re not going to hate you. How could they? You’re Lance. There’s nothing in the whole universe like you, and if they can’t love every last part of you, even the things they don’t like or understand,  _ especially  _ those things, they’re going to regret it. But you’ve told me so much about your family, and I don’t think they could ever walk away from one of their own, no matter what.

“Getting them to accept this–if they even have trouble in the first place, which you don’t know will happen for them all–it’s gonna be work on both sides. If you really have to, you just gotta rip off the band-aid, sit them down, and tell them there’s so much more to you than what they don’t like, or don’t understand. You’re full of this...this genuine and endless love, and you give it so...so...fully and...unconditionally. And you deserve it to be reciprocated, just as strongly, if not more. You have so much to offer, so much to–oh, shit, I didn’t mean to–”

“No, no,” Lance laughs, wiping the tears that had began to fall again. “This is a happy cry now. Promise.”

“Oh,” Keith breathes, still uneasy. “I didn’t, like, make you more upset?”

“No, you didn’t, Keith, honestly,” Lance chuckles some more. “You said what I needed to hear. Thank you. Seriously.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

“Are you sure this is okay?” Lance asks quietly, settling on Keith’s bed, looking around the room.

“Uh, yeah,” Keith grunts, stretching to reach the top shelf of his closet, pulling down the mason jar he keeps his stash in. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Your brother and Coach W are downstairs.”

“First of all, just call him Adam. Coach W is weird. Secondly, why would they care?” Keith asks, spreading the bowl, grinder, lighter, and bud across his desk.

“Aren’t they gonna smell it?” Lance whispers harshly.

Keith looks up, befuddled, “Yeah?”

Incredulously, Lance stares back, as if to silently point out something obvious.

“Oh!” Keith scoffs. “They don’t care, they smoke too. Not as often, but, y’know.”

By the look on Lance’s face, Keith can tell he’s a little shell-shocked. “Believe it or not, Lance, people other than teenagers smoke weed.”

“Well, I know  _ that,  _ obviously, it’s just...I don’t know, weird. That’s my childhood icon and my math teacher slash baseball coach down there you know.”

Keith laughs as he grinds the weed, “Please, Shiro gave me this bowl for Christmas last year.”

“Speaking of Shiro, does he always... _ interrogate _ people like that?”

“No, that was super weird,” Keith says. When Keith introduced Lance to Adam and Shiro, the latter asked Lance an unreasonable amount of questions. Where is he from? What’s his family like? What are his college plans? How’s baseball going? Is Adam a good coach? Is Keith a shitty student? Is  _ he  _ a shitty student? 

At some point, Keith had wandered off to the kitchen to grab some water for him and Lance, where Adam followed him, inconspicuously revealing to Keith that Shiro’s only trying to get a good read on Lance, testing him superficially on whether or not he’d be good for Keith. Adam then promptly walked out, winking and patting Keith on the shoulder, leaving him to sputter indistinct syllables as his face flushed with red.

“Hm,” Lance grunts.

“Not that you had a problem with that, you’re talkative,” Keith says. Packing the bowl tight, he mutters, “And a bit of a charmer.”

“Huh? What?”

“What?”

“Thought you said something.”

“Oh. No, I didn’t,” Keith says, keeping his head turned away. “Here, you can take the first hit. I’m gonna turn on some music.”

Lance holds the bowl and lighter gingerly as Keith opens the window and starts the tunes. When Keith turns back around, Lance is still staring at the bowl. Keith asks slowly, “Have you...ever used that before?”

“Yes,” Lance snaps, playfully defensive. “I just...might need a refresher. I’ve only used a bowl once or twice and it’s been a while.”

Keith chuckles, hitting the light switch, leaving on only multi-colored fairy lights strung about his room, and takes the bowl. Sitting on the bed criss cross from Lance, Keith flicks the lighter and puts the bowl to his lips, Lance’s eyes following his fluid movements.

20 minutes later, Lance is spinning slowly in Keith’s desk chair as Keith sits on his bed, leaning against the wall, as they both shove the last bits of their subs in their mouths, high as kites. Keith isn’t as far gone as he  _ could  _ be, but Lance on the other hand, with his lower tolerance, is exactly where Keith  _ wants  _ to be. Giggling sweetly at every little thing, loudly munching his sandwich, moaning at how good the meal is, Lance still looks a little less bright than his usual self, but is nearly a whole different being than an hour ago.

The steady haze runs through Keith’s veins, clouding his mind in just the right way, his eyelids feeling heavy, but not sleepy. Keith is quiet when sober, but if get some weed and put him with the right people, you can’t shut him up. The high makes it harder to talk, but Lance and his encouraging commentary are enough motivation to keep him going. People usually fall asleep or get quieter when they smoke with Keith, but Lance keeps up, talking just as much, laughing just as loud, entirely  in sync with Keith.

For the first time in a very long while, Keith not only feels listened to, but he feels his presence is truly being reveled in. As Lance drones on about something Keith accidentally stopped listening to in his mind-fogged state, Keith finds that Lance makes him feel like this sober too, and he’s relieved the drugs running through their systems aren’t just some artificial factor creating the bond between them. He hopes it isn’t unrequited, hopes Lance feels appreciated as well, hopes it’s all genuine and real. Admittedly, Keith’s brain is a little hazy and lets his next words slip, but he can’t seem to find regret in the moment, and he’s truthful and natural as he interrupts Lance’s story, with a hum and smile, “You’re a good friend.”

Mouth hanging open, Lance tilts his head a little, letting his gesturing hands drop out the air and laughing lightly, unsure, “What?”

Keith’s speech lags, and his mouth moves faster than his brain, so he talks slow, “In some class we were talking about philosophy, and how friendship is a virtue or some shit. And they...they said that, like, one of the most important ‘aspects of friendship’ or whatever the fuck, was to not just appreciate your friends, but to tell them that you appreciate them too. So, yeah. You’re a good friend. We haven’t been friends for very long, but...you’re still a good friend.”

“Huh,” Lance grins. “That’s...really sweet.”

The randomness of Keith’s admission catches up to his logic, and suddenly he feels a blush spreading. He’s about to blow it off, and begins to sputter his words when Lance stands, crawling onto the bed and settling next to Keith against the wall.

“Thanks for tonight,” Lance starts. His voice is low, quiet, and it feels intimate in a way Keith can’t tell if he likes or not. “For the weed, and the food, and the advice. You’re a good friend too.”

Looking down and twiddling his thumb, Keith hums, “No problem.”

“How did you know what to say?” Lance asks, but Keith isn’t entirely understanding the question. “In the car, you just seemed to know exactly what to say to help, I don’t get how.”

“Just...spend a lot of time by myself so, I guess I always think about what life would be like if it were different in a lot of ways. Y’know, what if I had a big family, what if I was still in foster care, what if my mom never left, or my dad never died, or Shiro never took me in. I...didn’t have many people to help me through a lot of things as I grew up. So, I’d tell myself what I would want someone to say to me. Guess it came in handy.”

Eyes locked down on his fingers as he picks at his nails futilely, Keith can feel Lance’s gaze. If he looked up, their faces would be too close for anything Keith’s ready for, especially with his head in this haze. Lance looks away after a few seconds, then drops his head onto Keith’s shoulder. It’s oddly satisfying weight, even if it is a little uncomfortable. Although tense, Keith relishes in the touch. 

“Oh my God, Keith, is this country music?”

Keith doesn’t respond.

“Keith!” Lance lifts his head, giggling.

“It’s Kacey Musgraves! It’s tasteful country music!” Keith defends. “Just listen to the song! It’s sweet, she’s just singing about how Earth’s pretty and how in love she is, let her live.”

Lance rolls his eyes, still smiling. To Keith’s relief, Lance sets his head back onto his shoulder. “Country music sounds like racism.”

Keith giggles, a small snort slipping in, “Yeah, when everyone except Kacey Musgraves sings it, I’ll give you that.”

Closing his eyes, Keith lets his body relax even more as the song finishes. _Brockhampton’s San Marcos_ begins to hum through the room, loud enough to be heard with the door shut, but not overwhelmingly booming. He can just barely hear Lance whisper, “Fuckin’ love this song.”

As the beat plays, Lance adjusts his head slightly, then asks, “Did you listen to a lot of country music when you were little?”

“Yeah,” Keith mutters. “My dad liked it. We grew up in Texas so…”

“That makes sense,” Lance scoffs, earning a weary smile from Keith in response. “What was he like?”

“My dad? He...he was reserved. Stoic, I guess. But he was really childish sometimes, kind of a jokester. Never took anything too seriously,” Keith says, succinct in his description. Talking about his dad is equivalent to treading on thin ice, but Keith realizes he doesn’t feel any dread talking about him in this light. “Sometimes, he reminds me of Shiro because of that.”

“Hm,” Lance murmurs.  “Was he a good dad?”

Keith smiles, “Yeah. He was the best dad ever.”

Letting his head fall into Lance’s hair, Keith’s grin fades slowly. He closes his eyes, trying to remember what his dad looked like, what his laugh sounded like. It doesn’t hurt to dig into those memories as much as it used to, and Keith isn’t sure what that could mean for his grief. He decides it’s best not to ponder it too much, and gets distracted by the sweet melody streaming into the air anyway.

_ Do my best to be selfless, I know that I’m changing. _

_ I know that I’m changing. _

_ I want more out of life than this. _

_ I want more, I want more. _

The harmony fades, the song ends. With a bounce, Lance hops up and out of the bed. He grabs Keith’s phone off the desk and turns off his Bluetooth, connecting his own phone instead. A spunky guitar riffs begins the song, something recognizable to Keith but not nostalgic. When the singer chimes in, Keith lets out a hearty giggle, “Is this  _ One Direction?” _

“You bet your ass it is,” Lance says, turning up the volume a touch, lazily swaying his body to the beat. “We needed something upbeat, it was getting too melodramatic.”

“Hey, now,” Keith teases. “Lorde would be insulted.”

“Ugh, don’t even get me  _ started  _ on the album of the century,” Lance rolls his eyes, smiling. “But we’re done being sad! Get up! Dance a little!”

Keith hasn’t danced since he was little, since his father would put on some of his favorite Waylon Jennings tracks and Keith would jump around without rhythm, childish and carefree. Yet, Lance, swaying his hips and looking at Keith with such warm, inviting eyes, is enough for Keith to push himself off of the bed, joining him in his movements.

Keith’s motions have no sense of a beat, and he almost feels embarrassed as he compares himself to Lance’s ability to control his body and look so fluid while doing so, but he finds himself more mesmerized than anything. Eyes shut and mumbling the lyrics to  _ She’s Not Afraid,  _ Lance lets any despairing thought slip from consciousness, focusing on nothing and letting playfulness take over. Keith is barely in touch with his own movements, barely hearing the music, letting Lance fill any gaps within his mind available for fixation.

 

~ ~ ~

 

It’s still dark outside when Keith wakes, his eyes crusty, brain fuzzy from coming down from the high. The fairy lights in his room are off, but the Chromecast on his TV keeps the room dimly lit. There’s a weight pressed against him, warm and heavy. Keith lets his eyes slip shut again, not thinking much of it.

Seconds later, his brain puts two and two together, and his eyes shoot open. Forcing himself to wake up a little more, he processes his position. Keith faces away from the wall his bed is pushed against, Lance as well. However, Lance is tucked tightly into Keith’s back, legs entangled and face burrowed against Keith’s neck. Lance’s arm rests softly on Keith, hand laying limp on Keith’s shoulder. Keith should move, he has to move.

He doesn’t want to move.

He wants to be selfish for a little while longer, for they happened to fall into this position while asleep, who has to know that Keith ever woke up to find himself like this? If he moves, he’ll wake Lance, sleeping so peacefully, enveloping him with such warmth, who is Keith to ruin that?

If Lance happens to rouse and wants to move, so be it; if Lance happens to stay asleep and moves off Keith eventually, so be it. Keith decides to relish in Lance’s body, soaking up all the warmth he can get snuggled under the blankets and tucked in close, listening to the tree outside his window blow against the wind, gently pulled back into a deep slumber.

As Keith falls unconscious, he thinks he likes the new circumstances he’s found himself in. He could get used to doing this more often.

So, he does.

The football games, the sleepovers, the friends, he adapts to it all, happily. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday after school, Keith works on his mural. On the days Lance doesn’t have conditioning, he joins Keith, silently doing his homework at a nearby table, occasionally looking up to see the progress. Some days they talk endlessly, some days they barely talk at all. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Keith is finished with work on the mural for the day, Lance still tutors Keith, who makes excellent progress. Lance is sure to be extra vocal about his pride in Keith’s improvement, forcing Keith to shrink down and blush, enjoying the praise but unsure of what to do with it. 

On Wednesdays and over the weekends, Keith works at the local auto shop, and when he doesn’t have work, he’ll either go out to eat with the group or hang out with Adam and Shiro. Every Sunday, Keith makes an effort to get brunch with Krolia, finding it easier and easier to spend time with her.

Fridays are for football games, but none are as packed as the Homecoming game, and Keith isn’t sure whether he likes that or not. However, football season ends early on in playoffs, and Fridays soon turn into get-togethers with the group. Sometimes Keith will hang out with the others without Lance, and even one on one, but it’s no secret the Keith and Lance are side by side in much of their free time.

If Lance has to stay home and babysit, Keith will go and join him, and if Lance has to reschedule a tutoring appointment, they often go to his house. Keith becomes a regular face in the Sanchez home, Lance’s siblings instantly taking a liking to him, and his mother is a sweet yet authoritative force, often sending Keith home with food (not that he’s complaining). Lance’s father steers clear when Keith is over, and Lance notes that while things are a little estranged, he’s not discouraged.

They don’t get baked every weekend, they don’t even have sleepovers every weekend, but there’s more than one occasion where the pair will wake up enveloped in each other. Never mentioning it, they typically awkwardly untangle themselves and move on with the morning. Keith secretly revels in it, often waking up with his face against Lance’s chest, or Lance’s back pressed into him, and vice versa. He never moves, he lets his arm stay asleep, tingling with discomfort, sacrificing blood flow for his own selfish motivations of wishing to keep Lance as close as possible.

It doesn’t get unbearable, but the ache in his chest doesn’t cease, knowing Lance isn’t his in the way he wishes to be, in the way he fantasizes when he lies awake at night, or in a long shower, or in a moment of fleeting daydreams when he listens to Lance rant and rave about whatever fixation he’s passionate about now.

The ache, the noise, telling him anything he feels for him is unrequited, is constant. Sometimes it’s consuming, loud, intolerable, but it persists so long as Keith’s reveries do. It’s fun while it lasts, but high school will all come to a crashing end soon enough, and they’ll all move on. As much as he dreams about being something more than platonic with Lance, he dreams about the possibilities of being rejected, the million, million realities in which Lance doesn’t reciprocate, and Keith is left humiliated and pining. Best not to dwell, best not to even test the waters.

For the time being, Keith is happy in this purposeful ignorance. It’s all going to cease come graduation, and he regrets not meeting Lance and all his new friends sooner. Pushing that to the back of his mind, he remains idle, living in the dream handed to him, opting to omit the looming changes to come from mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway i have excellent music taste  
> hope you enjoyed reading!! please leave, kudos, comments, share this fic, etc.  
> my tumblr: [lancebased](https://lancebased.tumblr.com/)


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